“Yer name is Mud this time,” said Gallagher. “I don’t want any cards an’ I’ll raise you the size o’ the pot.” “Is that so?” asked Long Mike. “Well, maybe I’ve drawed an ace, I don’t know. If I have. I’ll raise you my pile.” And he turned over the card he had drawn, exposing it to view. It was an ace, and without a word he shoved his chips all into the pot. It looked like a winning, and Gallagher studied some time before playing. But, though it looked like a winning, it also looked like one of Long Mike’s characteristic bluffs on finding himself confronted by a pat hand, and finally Gallagher said: “I’ve got to call you. Mine’s a flush.” “An’ mine’s a trey full on aces,” said Long Mike. “Faith if I’d known you was goin’ to stand pat, I’d have taken two an’ been beat.” And a mighty cheer went up from the crowd, for the two players were nearly even again. Gallagher scowled, but said nothing and played close. Winning and losing in turn for half an hour more, he fell slightly behind, so that he had less, instead of more, than half the chips when he caught four fours pat in a jack-pot that Long Mike opened. He raised, of course, and was raised in turn, till Long Mike called, and made ready to serve the draw. “Gimme one,” said Gallagher, carelessly, and was delighted when the other drew two. It looked like the chance of his life, and when Long Mike bet, he raised it his pile. But Long Mike called him again and showed down four eights. “Now,” he said, “all ye have is mine, isn’t it?” “It is,” said Gallagher, pluckily enough. “Shtrip, then,” said Long Mike, sternly, and the other without a word threw off his clothes till he had on nothing but a fine Irish blush. But he uttered no complaint, and the crowd that had jeered him unmercifully fell into silence and turned away its eyes as he walked toward the door. Just as he reached it, however, Long Mike stopped him. “Come back an’ put on yer clothes,” he said. “They do be fittin’ yez betther nor they would me. Yer money I’ll take, for ye’ll worrk the harder for bein’ broke, but yer house I don’t want. Yer a man, afther all, Gallagher, an’ I’ll hire you over again. There’s a boat whistlin’ on the river now, an’ ye’ll hustle th’ men down the levee right speedy.” VIII A TRIAL OF SKILL “There’s wan thing about Brownsville,” said Stumpy, “that saves the place from bein’ like wan o’ them asylums f’r the feeble-moinded, where the min sews patchwork, an’ the women shmokes pipes.” “Wot’s eatin’ you?” asked Sam, the bartender. Sam had local pride which he held to be justified by his own prosperity, and he was apt to be gruff when any one spoke disparagingly of Brownsville. The two men had sat together on the levee, sociably silent for half an hour, when the spirit moved Stumpy to speech. Having spoken, however, he sat as one relieved in his mind, and was in no haste for further conversation. It was therefore some minutes before he replied, but at length he said: