The Black Lion Inn

Pittsburg as a nearest promising arena of effort. I had a small place at a smaller wage as a sort of office boy and porter for a down-tow

ification to pillage my way to eminence if not to riches among the nimble-fingered nobility of the green tables into whose midst I had coaxed or crowded my way. Vast was my ambition to soar as a blackleg, and no student at his honest books burned with more fire to succeed. I became initiate into such mysteries as the "bug," the "punch," the "hold-out"; I could deal "double" or "from the bottom;" was a past m

s for the exchange. And with no purpose to preach, I say openly and with a fullest freedom that the game of stock speculation is as replete of traps and pitfalls, and of as false and blackleg character as any worst game of iniquitous faro that is dealt with trimmed and sanded deck from a dishonest box. As an arena of morals the stock exchange presents no conscious improvement beyond what is offered by the veriest dead-fall ever made elate with those two rings at the bell which tell the waiti

ether abandon Tom's Run, and the good, grimy miner folk, its inhabitants. My week's holiday began with each Saturday's noon; from that hour un

ted at cards-memorable event!-and it was on another that

venerable and I trust respected gentleman-coming to Wales from somewhere on the banks of the Blackwater. And my father, excellent man! had vast pride in his Irish linea

s, do you take me for an onion-eating Welshman? M

as conclusion to this, carried such weight of emphasis that

ets. Not so my dear old father; to the hour when death closed his eyes-already sightless for ten years-burned out with a blast, they were-he ceased not to regale me with tales of that noble line of dauntless Irish from whom we drew our blood. For the ten years following the destruction of his eyes by powder, I saw much of my father, for I established him at

Boru at Clontarf. Sometimes to tease him, I'd argue what must have been the weak and primitive inconsequence of the royal Boru. I'd suggest that by the sheer narrowness and savagery of the hour wherein that monarch li

rein he fed and housed a thousand knights compared with whom in riches, magnificence, and chivalrous feats those warriors who came about King Arthur's round

m write down as the wor-rds fell from th' mouth av him th' whole of th' Code Brian; an'

n the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian-I had learned so much Latin from Father Glennon-and

dade, but a thievin' Roman imp'ror who shtole his laws from King Boru just as th' Dagoes now ar

aw were in existence five centuries before the martyred Boru was born. That discovery would have served no purpose beyon

ved the old man; and to this day when my hair, too, is gray and when I may win my wealth and count my wealth and keep my

ade to know of my mother's close connection by blood with the house of that brave Sarsfield "who," as my father explained, "fairly withstud th' Dootchman at th' Boyne; an' later made him quit befure th' walls av Limerick." There was one traditi

s long. It's in Stirlin' Cashtle now, an' there niver was but one man besides Wallace who cud handle it. Th' Black Douglas an' all av thim Scotchmen thried it an' failed. Whin, one da

ast were earning their narrow pay, it was the habit of himself and four or five other gentlemen of coal to gather in the Toni's Run Arms when Saturday evening came on, and relax into th

make one at this Saturday contentio

Shure! you're nawthin' but a boy an' not fit to

e old professors of forty-five who played the game with never a mistake, if I, like them,

the others ca

win his money fr-rom him an' it'll be a lesson. H

l you lose fifty cints; an' that'll do ye. Moind now! whin you l

my "deal," and the moment I got the cards in my hands I abstracted the ace of hearts-a most doughty creature in this game of forty-five!-and dropped it in my lap, covering the fact from vulgar eyes with a fold of my handkerchief. That was al

d my gains to luck and loud was exclamation over my good fortune. Time and again, for I was not their equal as a mere player, I'

would add, "an' yet

Pittsburg without a sigh; and such was my ardor to fleece these coaldigging comrades of my father-and for that matter, my father, also; for like your true gambler, I played no favorites and was as warm to gather in the dimes of my parent as any-that I was usually fo

yself a stripling boy, the others bearded miner men-my father complained of an ache in hi

"an' resht mesilf a bit. It's loike I'll feel be

r, sat nursing himself at a near-by table. I lost no time in acquiring my mag

om the cares of forty-five would have stood more on tiptoe. As it was, however, it never assailed me as a thought that I had

a deal, my parent stole noiselessly behind my chair. He reached under my arm and lifted the corner

t that my villainy was made bare. This n

a boy to be a r-robbe

on the head that lifted me from my sinful chair and hurled me across the room and against the wall full fifteen fe

ther. Then seizing me by the collar, he lifted me to my feet. "Pu

n the total of my winnings-and this was placed in the center of the table which had so lately witnessed my skill. An even distribution was then made by

You take th' money; I'll make shift that the dishgrace

n his clutch; and later-bathed in tears of pain and shame-I was dragged

row evening, should you care to listen, I may unfold concerning other of my adventures; I may even relate-as a tale most to my diplomatic glory

a bloo stack that as we-alls sets yere talkin', the games is goin' brisk an' hot in Wolfville. Thar won't be no thr

le in the West?" ask

bank an' monte as though they ain't got a minute to live. I hates to concede 'em so much darin', but the Mexicans, speshul, is zealous f

d their ways, their labors and relaxations-their loves and their hates. I'd be pl

concedes how each gent present oughter b'ar his share of the ente