At this time Joe was already in the coils of that consumption whereof at last he died. And what with a racking cough and an inability to breathe while lying down, Joe seldom slept in a bed. The best he might do was to gain what snatches of slumber he could while propped in an arm-chair. It thus befell that at his suggestion and to tell the whole truth, at his generous expense, I came finally to room with Joe. Somebody should utilize the bed. Being young and sound of nerves, his restless night-roamings about the floors disturbed not me; I slept serenely through as I doubtless would through the crack of doom had such calamity surprised us at that time, and Joe and I prospered bravely in company. Beseech and plead as I might, however, Joe would not impart to me that hidden casino strength beyond his word that no fraud was practiced--a fact whereof my watchings had made me sure--and curtly describing it as an ability to “Tell the last four.” While Joe housed me as his guest for many months and paid the bills, one is not to argue therefrom any unhappy pauperism on my boyish part. In good sooth! I was more than rich during those days, with a fortune of anywhere from five hundred to as many as four thousand dollars. Like all disciples of chance I had these riches ever ready in my pocket for what prey might offer. It was now and then well for Joe that I went thus provided. That badly garbed squire of good dame Fortune, who failed not of a profit at casino, had withal an overpowering taste to play faro; and as if by some law of compensation and to preserve an equilibrium, he would seem to sit down to a faro layout only to lose. Time and again he came to his rooms stripped of the last dollar. On these harrowing occasions Joe would borrow a round-number stake from me and so return to the legitimate sure harvests of casino, vowing never to lose himself and his money in any quicksands of farobank again. It must be admitted that these anti-faro vows were never kept; once firm on his feet by virtue of casino renewed, it was not over long ere he “tried it just once more,” to lose again. These faro bankruptcies would overtake Joe about once a month. One day I made a mild plot; I had foregone all hope of coaxing Joe’s secret from him; now I resolved to bring against him the pressure of a small intrigue. I lay in ambush for Joe, waylaid him as it were in the weak hour of his destitution and ravished from him at the point of his necessities that which I could come by in no other way. It was following a disastrous night at faro when Joe appeared without so much silver in his pockets as might serve to keep the fiends from dancing there. Having related his losses he asked for the usual five hundred wherewith to re-enter the sure lists of casino and begin the combat anew. To his sore amazement and chagrin--and somewhat to his alarm, for at first he thought me as poor as himself from my refusal--I shook my sage young head.