ng through a hall,
they entered a large, brilliantly-lighted billiard saloon.
Around several tables were gathered gentlemanly-looking men,
knocking about little ivory balls, with long, slender wands or
cues, and seeming, evidently, engrossed in their respective
games. After looking around for a while, Sharpe proposed going
up stairs into the third story. They ascended to the upper
rooms. In the upper passage stood a stout, short negro-man, who
glanced at Sharpe, stepped one side, and permitted them to pass
unquestioned. They entered another smaller room,--for the third
story was divided into several rooms,--and found other games
than those exhibited below. After walking through some of the
rooms, and observing the different games, most of which were new
to Warren, his companion said to him:

"Do you understand anything about cards?"

"Not a great deal; I have occasionally played a game of whist or
sledge."

"Well, that is about the sum of my knowledge. Suppose we while
away a half-an-hour at one of these vacant tables."

Warren consented, and they sat down. After playing a game or
two, Sharpe proposed having a bottle of wine, and, said he,
laughingly, "Whoever loses the next game, shall pay for it."

"Agreed," said Warren; and the wine was brought, and he won the
game.

"Well, that is your good luck; but I'll bet you the price of
another bottle you can't do it again."

Warren won again.

They tried a third, and that Sharpe won; a fourth, and Warren
rose the winner.

The next evening found them, somehow, without much talk about
it, at the same place. They played with varied success; but when
they left, Warren had lost ten dollars.

He wanted to win it back, and himself proposed the visit for the
third night. He became excited by the game, and lost seventy
dollars.

Still his eyes were not open; he did not dream that he was in
the hands of a professed gambler, and, hoping to get back what
he had lost, and what he felt he really could not spare from his
small amount of funds, he went again.

"There!" said he, after they had been about an hour at the
table, "there is my last fifty-dollar bill; change that, and
I'll try once more."

"Well," said Sharpe, "here is the change; but the luck seems
against you. We had better stop for to-night."

But Warren insisted upon continuing, and he won thirty dollars
in addition to the fifty which Sharpe had changed for him. The
gambler then rose, and told him that he