One evening as the half dozen devoted to the science of forty-five drew up to the table--myself a stripling boy, the others bearded miner men--my father complained of an ache in his head or an ache in his stomach or some malady equally cogent, and said he would not play. “I’ll have me poipe an’ me mug av beer,” he said, “an’ resht mesilf a bit. It’s loike I’ll feel betther afther a whoile an’ then I’ll take a haand.” Play began, while my suffering father with his aches, his tobacco and his beer, sat nursing himself at a near-by table. I lost no time in acquiring my magic ace of hearts and at once the stream of usual fortune set in to flow my way. Ten years, yes, one year later, my suspicions touching my father’s illness and his reasons for this unprecedented respite from the cares of forty-five would have stood more on tiptoe. As it was, however, it never assailed me as a thought that I had become the subject of ancestral doubts. I cheated on and on, and made hay while the sun shone with never a cloud in the sky. It was not noticed by me, but following a halfhour’s play and while I was shuffling the cards for a deal, my parent stole noiselessly behind my chair. He reached under my arm and lifted the corner of the concealing handkerchief which filled my lap. Horrors! there lay the tell-tale ace of hearts! Even then I realized nothing and knew not that my villainy was made bare. This news, however, was not long in its arrival. “Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” roared my father. Coincident with this remark, the paternal hand--not the lightest nor least formidable on Tom’s Run--dealt me a buffet on the head that lifted me from my sinful chair and hurled me across the room and against the wall full fifteen feet away. My teeth clattered, my wits reeled, while my ill-gotten silver danced blithely to metallic music of its own. “Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” again shouted my father. Then seizing me by the collar, he lifted me to my feet. “Put all your money on the ta-able!” he cried; “put ivry groat av it!” There was no escape; I was powerless in the talons of an inexorable fate. My pockets yielded a harvest of hardby seventy-five dollars--something more than the total of my winnings--and this was placed in the center of the table which had so lately witnessed my skill. An even distribution was then made by my father among the victims, each getting his share of the recovered treasure; my father keeping none for himself though urged by the others to that end. “No,” said my father; “I’ll touch niver a penny av it. You take th’ money; I’ll make shift that the dishgrace of bein’ fa-ather to a rapparee shall do for me share!” With that, he withdrew from the scene of my downfall, carrying me fast in his clutch; and later--bathed in tears of pain and shame--I was dragged into the presence of my mother and Father Glennon by the ignominious ear.