at the bottom, with the evident intention of keeping Simon's
fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who was quietly
looking over his father's shoulders all the time, did not seem alarmed
by this disposition of the cards; on the contrary, he smiled, as if he
felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it.

"Now, daddy," said Simon, when his father had announced himself ready,
"narry one of us ain't got to look at the cards, while I'm a-cuttin'; if
we do, it'll spile the conjuration."

"Very well."

"And another thing: you've got to look me right dead in the eye, daddy;
will you?"

"To be sure,--to be sure," said Mr. Suggs; "fire away."

Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack.
Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for
about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a
suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder
Suggs did not remark it.

"Wake snakes! day's a-breakin'! Rise, Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a
dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the
bottom one for the inspection of his father.

It was the Jack of hearts!

Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps, with uplifted eyes and
hands!

"Marciful master!" he exclaimed, "ef the boy hain't! Well, how in the
round creation of the--! Ben, did you ever? To be sure and sartain,
Satan has power on this yearth!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in very
bitterness.

"You never seed nothin' like that in _Augusty_, did ye, daddy?" asked
Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.

"Simon, how _did_ you do it?" queried the old man, without noticing his
son's question.

"Do it, daddy? Do it? 'Tain't nothin'. I done it jist as easy
as--shootin'."

Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to
the perplexed mind of Elder Jed'diah Suggs can not, after the lapse of
the time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is
certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but
merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact that, in
consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order
to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the State
of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable pony, Bunch.

"Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily
of the way mammy _give_ old Trailler the side of bacon last week. She
a-