“In thirty-six consecutive hands she held twenty-seven flushes. None of the other nine hands contained even a pair. Five of the twenty-seven were pat hands; nine times she drew one card, eight times she drew two, three times she drew three, and twice she drew four. There seemed to be no distinction of suits. The flush was of one suit as often as another. It was absolutely impossible that there could have been trickery, for there were six dealing in turn. The lady herself was exceedingly nervous about it, and although she became so excited as to continue drawing for flushes, she ceased to try to play them scientifically. Indeed, the other players ceased after a time to bet against her, and the cards were at length dealt more from curiosity than from any interest in the game as a game. At length, however, the lucky lady grew so nearly hysterical that her husband made some excuse to break up the game. I was sorry it had to be done, too, for I wanted to see how long such a run would continue, but the lady has told me since that she never, before or since, had any similar experience, though she plays frequently. “I never saw anything exactly similar to that, but I had a run of luck once myself that seemed to me almost as curious. I went to visit a friend and there was invited to sit down at a poker game with some men I had never met before. The fact of not knowing the other players did not worry me, for I assumed that they were all friends of Harry’s, but it was not long before the fact that they did not know me began to worry me most confoundedly, for I never had such cards in my life before, and I don’t dare even to hope that I will ever hold them again. If the circumstances had been different and I could have felt free to play to win, I could have won big money, for they were playing an open game, and the limit was two dollars. At first I played my hands for what they were worth, and I won more than half the pots I played for--a big percentage when six are playing. But after a little I began to worry. It seemed to me that they must mistrust me, and I hesitated about betting as I ordinarily would. Still I kept winning and my pile of chips grew till I was positively ashamed of myself. “Then I started to try to lose money. Fancy a man doing that at poker! I threw down a number of hands that were well worth betting on, and bet rather heavily on some that I was convinced were losers. Even at that I got fooled once or twice and took in pots that were not contested, when the other players would have won them if they had not grown cautious of my luck. Still, I was reducing my pile slowly, in spite of the cards I was getting, and would have reduced it still further if the ladies had not grown tired of their own society and come out to look at the game. One or two casual remarks by their husbands about my luck excited their curiosity, and two or three began looking at my cards.