above Baton Rouge.

Late at night he came out of his state-room so completely disguised
that I did not know him. We took several drinks together, until
he began to feel jolly; then I asked him what he was up to. "Well,"
he replied, "I have been playing the bank and poker for some time,
and have been several thousand dollars loser, and I knew sooner or
later the books would be overhauled, so I collected some money and
skipped. Here I am, and what to do I don't know, nor where I shall
wind up."

"Oh, there are plenty of people in the same box that you are," I
said. "Don't flatter yourself that you are the only one who has
taken money; but perhaps they will now go through the books, and,
discovering the deficit, arrest you."

"Yes, but I don't intend to be caught. I think I will go to Canada.
I am now traveling under an assumed name."

"Are you sure none of the discharging clerks saw you when you came
aboard?"

"I was in this disguise, and came over two boats until I reached
this one, and having a friend with me, he secured a room for two."

"How much did you get away with?"

"Seventy-two hundred dollars."

Which he had collected the day before he left. He proposed going
out and shaking the dice for the drinks. I stuck him again and
again, and at last he proposed to shake for five dollars. That
suited me; and when he proposed to shake for ten dollars, I was
ready.

Then I began to work on him, for I thought I might as well have
that money as anybody, as I knew he would gamble, and never reach
Canada with it. I suggested that we go to my state-room, as the
bar-room was too public a place, and he acceded. In half and hour
we were throwing for a hundred dollars a throw, and when I quit I
was $4,100 ahead, as I knew that it would not do to win it all from
him, so I told him that I was sleepy and tired. We took a drink
at the bar, and he drank so heavily that I was obliged to tell the
porter to see him to his room.

I knew that he must have money to go out of the country, and it
would not do to break him, as I would then have to loan him money.
We were then twenty-five miles from Baton Rouge, and I slept on a
couple of chairs in the cabin, and was awakened by my partner, who
wanted to know if I wanted to sleep forever--as I had retired with
him, but, unable to sleep, had risen. When I told my partner of
the roll I had made, he said that I was the luckiest man he ever
saw; but I told him it was no luc