ith a
cheerful countenance, and not make any claim against winners unless they
know them for certain to be sharpers and their winnings to be unfairly
won; and that there could be no better proof that he himself was an
honest man than his having refused to give anything; for sharpers always
pay tribute to lookers-on who know them.

"That is true," said the majordomo; "let your worship consider what is to
be done with these men."

"What is to be done," said Sancho, "is this; you, the winner, be you
good, bad, or indifferent, give this assailant of yours a hundred reals
at once, and you must disburse thirty more for the poor prisoners; and
you who have neither profession nor property, and hang about the island
in idleness, take these hundred reals now, and some time of the day
to-morrow quit the island under sentence of banishment for ten years, and
under pain of completing it in another life if you violate the sentence,
for I'll hang you on a gibbet, or at least the hangman will by my orders;
not a word from either of you, or I'll make him feel my hand."

The one paid down the money and the other took it, and the latter quitted
the island, while the other went home; and then the governor said,
"Either I am not good for much, or I'll get rid of these gambling houses,
for it strikes me they are very mischievous."

"This one at least," said one of the notaries, "your worship will not be
able to get rid of, for a great man owns it, and what he loses every year
is beyond all comparison more than what he makes by the cards. On the
minor gambling houses your worship may exercise your power, and it is
they that do most harm and shelter the most barefaced practices; for in
the houses of lords and gentlemen of quality the notorious sharpers dare
not attempt to play their tricks; and as the vice of gambling has become
common, it is better that men should play in houses of repute than in
some tradesman's, where they catch an unlucky fellow in the small hours
of the morning and skin him alive."

"I know already, notary, that there is a good deal to be said on that
point," said Sancho.

And now a tipstaff came up with a young man in his grasp, and said,
"Senor governor, this youth was coming towards us, and as soon as he saw
the officers of justice he turned about and ran like a deer, a sure proof
that he must be some evil-doer; I ran after him, and had it not been that
he stumbled and fell, I should never have caught him."

"W