He called for a private room, which I should have done if he had not, though with a very different view. My appearance made him hope he had caught a gudgeon. He presently began to turn the discourse upon various kinds of gaming. Billiards, tennis, hazard, and pass-dice, were each of them mentioned; and, to encourage him, I gave him to understand I knew them all. He then talked of cards, and asked if I had any objection to take a hand at picquet; 'just to pass away an hour before supper.' I answered none. Accordingly the waiter was rung for, and the cards were presently upon the table. He proposed playing for a trifle; from one guinea to five; not more; 'becase as why, he was tied up from deep play. He had lost five thousand pounds within six weeks, and they had had a pretty pigeon of him!--[Had you but seen the form and features of this pigeon, Fairfax!] For which raison he must take care and not be plucked any more. It was the misfortune of his timper not to know when to stop; and there was not so unlucky a fillow in the three kingdoms. He was always the bubble, play at what he would, and every snap-jack knew him to be his mark.' Such was the lesson which this fellow had got by rote, and had been retailing to all comers for years. But I have observed of gamblers that they cannot forbear rehearsing their own cant even in the company of each other, and when they are convinced every soul that hears them knows they are lying. I however had my purpose to serve, and we sat down to our game. The stakes were five guineas a side. According to custom, I won the three or four first games; and he pretended to curse, and fret, and again ran over his bead-roll of being pigeoned, plucked bare, bubbled, done up, and the whole catalogue of like genteel phrases. The first game he won he proposed, as luck was perhaps taking a turn in his favour, to double the stakes, and I indulged him. He suffered me to win the following game. I say suffered, cheating being taken into the account; for I am certain that at the fair game I am his master. But that is no matter. The three following games were all his own, and he then began to repeat the remainder of his part. 'By the blissed Jasus he would not believe his own eyes! Three games together!' The fellow swore, with one of the deepest oaths his memory could furnish, such a thing had never happened to him before in his whole life! 'But now that he was in luck, he would as soon play for a hundred guineas as for a thirteener.'