But those are some simple little points to be picked up in an evening's play, and a knowledge of the simple little points of such a game is worse than worthless--it is expensive. To really learn the Log Cabin game, you must give up your business, your dancing, and your home life, move out to St. Louis, cultivate Log Cabin members (who are the high priests of poker) and play with them until your family fortune has been painlessly extracted. And however great the fortune, it is a small price to pay for such adept instruction. When it is gone you will still fall short of ordinary Missouri poker, and will be as a mere babe in the hands of a Log Cabin member, but you will be absolutely sure of winning, _anywhere outside the State_. It seems logical that the city, which is beyond doubt the poker center of the universe, should also have attained to eminence in drinks. It was in St. Louis that two great drinks came into being. In the old days of straight whisky, the term for three fingers of red liquor in a whisky glass was a "ball." But there came from Austria a man named Enno Sanders, who established a bottling works in St. Louis, and manufactured seltzer. St. Louis liked the seltzer and presently it became the practice to add a little of the bubbling water to the "ball." This necessitated a taller glass, so men began to call for a "_high_ ball." The weary traveler may be glad to know that the highball has not been discontinued in St. Louis. Another drink which originated in St. Louis is the gin rickey. Colonel Rickey was born in Hannibal, Mo., of which town I shall write presently. Later he moved to St. Louis and invented the famous rickey, which immortalized his name--preserving it, as it were, in alcohol. The drink was first served in a bar opposite the old Southern Hotel--a hotel which, by the way, I regretted to see standing empty and deserted at the time of my last visit, for, in its prime, it was a hotel among hotels. I have tried to lead gradually, effectively to a climax. From clubs, which are pleasant, I progressed to poker, which is pleasanter; from poker I stepped ahead to highballs and gin rickeys. And now I am prepared to reach my highest altitude. I intend to tell the very nicest thing about St. Louis. And the nicest thing about St. Louis is the nicest thing that there can be about a place. It discounts primitive street cars, an ill-set railway station, and an unfinished bridge. It sinks the parks, the botanical gardens, the art museum into comparative oblivion. Small wonder that St. Louis seems to ignore her minor weaknesses when she excels in this one thing--as she must know she does. The nicest thing about St. Louis is St. Louis girls.