One of the old-time river gamblers was an individual, blind in one eye, known as "One-eyed Murphy." Murphy was an extremely artful manipulator of cards, and made a business of cheating. One day, shortly after the _Natchez_ had backed out from New Orleans and got under way, Marion Knowles, a picturesque gentleman of the period, and one who had the reputation of being polite even in the most trying circumstances, and no matter how well he had dined, came in and stood for a time as a spectator beside a table at which Murphy was playing poker with some guileless planters. Mr. Knowles was not himself guileless, and very shortly he perceived that the one-eyed gambler was dealing himself cards from the bottom of the pack. Thereupon he drew his revolver from his pocket and rapping with it on the table addressed the assembly: "Gentlemen," he said, speaking in courtly fashion, "I regret to say that there is something wrong here. I will not call any names, neither will I make any personal allusions. _But if it doesn't stop, damn me if I don't shoot his other eye out!_" I cannot drop the river, and stories of river gambling, without referring to one more tale which is a classic. It is a long story about a big poker game, and to tell it properly one must know the exact words. I do not know them, and therefore shall not attempt to tell the whole story, but shall give you only the beginning. It is supposed to be told by a Virginian. "There was me," he says, "and another very distinguished gentleman from Virginia and a gentleman from Kentucky, and a man from Ohio, and a fellow from New York, and a blankety-blank from Boston--" That is all I know of the story, but I can guess who got the money in that game. Can't you? CHAPTER XLIX WHAT MEMPHIS HAS ENDURED An article on Memphis, published in the year 1855, gives the population of the place as about 13,000 (one quarter of the number slaves), and calls Memphis "the most promising town in the Southwest." It predicts that a railroad will some day connect Memphis with Little Rock, Arkansas, and that a direct line between Memphis and Cincinnati may even be constructed. This article begins the history of Memphis in the year 1820, when the place had 50 inhabitants. In 1840 the settlement had grown to 1,700, and fifteen years thereafter it was almost eight times that size.