young man above, whose identity was
betrayed by a love-letter. Gamblers are always discovering some
infallible system of beating the bank. The first word in La Bruyere's
famous work--"_Tout est dit_" "Everything has been said,"--is true of
gambling against the bank's system, which is to take a positive
advantage which must win in the long run. Not only has everything been
said, but everything has been done to beat the bank. Every move has been
tried, and the result is evident to all but those who are given over to
"a reprobate mind" and will not be convinced. "To gamble against the
bank," said an eminent authority, "whether recklessly or systematically,
is to gamble against a rock."

If the odds are so much against the insane gambler who, secure in an
infallible system, hastens to place his foot on the neck of chance in
what is called a "square" game, how must he inevitably fare in a "skin"
operation. And the stranger who comes within our gates, bent on backing
his methods by a wager, is almost sure to be beguiled into the "skin"
game; for he is likely to meet, lounging around his hotel, some
fashionably dressed young man who spends money freely, and who, by and
by, kindly offers to show him around. He has run across a "roper-in," as
he is well named, whose business it is to track the footsteps of
travelers visiting the metropolis for business or pleasure. It is the
engaging mission of those suave and persuasive gentlemen to worm
themselves into the confidence of strangers, with or without an
infallible system of beating the game, and introduce them to their
employers, the gambling-hell proprietors. And when the poor, misguided
pigeon is plucked, the adroit "roper-in" receives his commission on the
profits realized. This hunting after pecunious strangers is so
systematically carried on that it might be dignified by the name of a
science. Keepers of gambling-houses are necessarily particularly
wide-awake. They take care to be regularly informed of everything
transpiring in the city that may be of interest to their business, and
their agents and emissaries leave nothing to chance. They are not
impetuous. They never hurry up the conclusion of the transaction. When
the unwary stranger is in a fit condition for the sacrifice he is led to
the gaming-table with as much indifference and _sang froid_ as butchers
drive sheep to the shambles.

The reader, among other of Gotham's gambling devices, may have heard of
what is aptly