. I accepted the invitation,
and when the barkeeper put the checks and cards on the table, I
saw my old friends (I mean the cards). The game was five-handed,
and it was pretty hard to keep the run of all the hands; but I quit
the game a few hundred dollars winner. After the game one of the
gentlemen came to me and said: "I don't like a five-handed game;
suppose we split up and make two games." That was just what I
wanted, provided I could get in the game that had the most suckers,
so I said to him: "I do not care to play, if you gentlemen can
make up your game without me; but as we are all going through to
New Orleans, I will play a little to pass the time. You can arrange
the games to suit yourselves, and can count me in if you are short
a man." The gentlemen arranged two nice games, with me in one of
them. I had no partner, so I had to depend entirely on myself and
my old friends, the marks on the back. We played until the engines
were stopped at the landing in New Orleans, and I was $4,300 ahead.
I might have won a great deal more with the assistance of a good
partner, but then, you know, I would have had to divide with him;
so I was very well pleased with my last day on the new steamer.
I did not forget the new barkeeper, but gave him $50 for using my
cards at one of the tables in place of his own.

FIGHT WITH A LONG-SHOREMAN.

A big fellow tackled me by the name of Barlow. He was a long-
shoreman, and a tough one, but I did him up in seventeen minutes.
He came into a saloon where I was in company with Bill Leonard and
Bob Johnson. Leonard is well known, having kept stables in New
Orleans and Cincinnati for many years. I had given races that day,
and it appears that this man Barlow had lost some money. Five or
six toughs entered the saloon with Barlow. He approached Johnson
and said to him, "You throwed that race, you s-- of a b----, and
I am going to lick you for it." He cut loose and hit Johnson, and
he must have hit him pretty hard, for he knocked him clear into
the street. As Johnson was getting up, an officer ran up to him,
when Johnson cut loose and knocked him down, thinking it was Barlow.
They arrested Johnson and took him off. Then Barlow turned to me
and said, "You keep the race track, and you are as big a thief as
that other fellow. You whipped a good man when you whipped
Fitzgerald, but you can't whip Barlow." I looked around to see
how many friends he had with him, and I saw the