DAY.

It was public most everywhere. Faro tables, the great American gambling
game, Monte, the Mexican and Roulette. The Eldorado, on the corner of
the plaza, was the most celebrated gambling house of that time. There
had been a great deal of money expended in fitting it up. It had an
orchestra of fifteen persons. It was run all night and day, with two
sets of hands. It was gorgeously fitted up. What they used to stir up
the sugar in the drinks cost $300. It was solid gold. Numerous gambling
tables, piled up with gold and silver, to tempt the better, behind which
were hired dealers. The owners of the Eldorado were not known. Many a
miner has come with his few thousand dollars to San Francisco to sail
for home, and taking in the sights, visited the Eldorado, got interested
in the different games, and lost it all and went back to the gold
regions broken and penniless to try his luck over again. I heard of one
that lost his all three times in that way. I saw a man once put down a
bag of gold, which contained $5,000, bet $1,000 on one turn of the card
at Monte. He lost. While I was looking at him in the course of half an
hour, he lost it all. I thought what independence that amount would have
given some family in the East.

In those early days there was often but a muslin partition between you
and the next room, and you could hear every word in the next apartment.
About 1 o'clock in the morning I was awaken by two men entering and
taking the next room to mine, whom I saw running a Roulette table on the
plaza. They seemed to be considerably excited. They said they would be
willing to lose some money to get rid of that tapper. Of course, I
could not understand, at first, what they meant by that expression, but
come to find out from their conversation, they had their Roulette table
arranged so that they could make the ball stop on the red or black, as
it happened to be for their interest to have it do. So, if there were
$20 bet upon the red, the tapper would bet $10 on the black, and they
could not make the red lose without making the black win. So the tapper
was getting half of their gains. I would advise all my friends to let
Roulette alone, unless they are sure they can place themselves in the
position of the tapper.

One morning on the plaza I took a look into a gambling saloon. I saw a
Greaser that had been betting against Monte all night, and had had
wonderful luck. He announced that he would tap the bank for $1,800,