“Oh! forget it,” said the man with his heels on the fender. “Excuse me,” he added, as the other looked at him in mild surprise, “but that is such an awful chestnut. What has provoked you to philosophizing?” “Was I philosophizing? Well, perhaps I was. One of the youngsters asked me to join in a game of poker a little while ago, and I was going to do it, for I like poker when the stakes are not too heavy, but he told me they were playing with a joker. “Now, they may get up a game of poker one of these days with high, low, big and little casino, and the right and left bowers in it, and it may prove to be a game that will be much liked by those who play it. Certainly, I will have nothing against it. But when I sit in at the game I want to play it as I learned it. So I declined the invitation.” “Do you play it as you learned it?” asked the other. “When I learned, four aces couldn’t be beaten.” “I must admit that point to be well taken,” said the gray-haired young-looking man, “for I can remember, myself, when a straight flush was an unknown hand. In fact, the first one I ever saw came near costing two lives. But the straight flush, though it was in its day a modern improvement, was a legitimate development and not a change in the game. The principle underlying draw poker is that a hand is valuable exactly in proportion to the difficulty encountered in getting it--that is, according to the smallness of the chance you have of holding it. Fours were supposed to be the hand that was the hardest to get, and so fours were the winning hand. When somebody discovered that the chances of holding a straight flush were fewer than the chances of holding fours, the straight flush took its place strictly in accordance with the rules of the game as already formulated. The only reason it was not played from the first was that it had not been recognized as a distinct hand before. If somebody should discover a new hand--that is, a new combination of cards with a positive, individual character of its own, sharply distinguishing it from any other combination--that new hand might be admitted at its proper value without changing the rules.” “There is a certain amount of interest in what you say, no doubt,” said the man with his heels on the fender, “but it occurs to me that there may be even more in the narration of the circumstances under which you made the acquaintance of a straight flush.”