“Haven’t you got it?” asked Joe anxiously. “Oh, yes,” I replied, “I’ve got it; and it’s yours on one condition. Teach me how to ‘Tell the last four,’ and you may have five hundred and five hundred with it.” Then I pointed out to Joe his mean unfairness in not equipping me with this resistless knowledge. Save for that one pregnant secret I was as perfect at casino as any sharper on the Bowery. Likewise, were the situation reversed, I’d be quick to instruct him. I’d lend no more; there would come no further five hundred save as the price of that touchstone--the golden secret of how to “Tell the last four.” This I set forth jealously. “Why, then,” said Joe, “I’ll do my best to teach you. But it will cost a deal of work. You’ll have to put in hours of practice and curry and groom and train your memory as if it were a horse for a great race. I tell you the more readily--for I could elsewhere easily get the five hundred and for that matter five thousand other dollars to keep it company--since I believe I’ve not many months to live at best”--here, as if in confirmation, a gust of coughing shook him--“and this secret shall be your legacy.” With these words, Joe got a deck of cards and began a game of casino with me as an adversary. Slowly playing the cards, he explained and strove to illustrate those mental methods by which he kept account and tabbed them as they were played. If I could lay bare this system here I would; but its very elaboration forbids. It was as though Joe owned a blackboard in his head with the fifty-two cards told off by numbers in column, and from which he erased a card the moment it appeared in play. By processes of elimination, he came finally to “Tell the last four,” and as the last hands were dealt knew those held by his opposite as much as ever he knew his own. This advantage, with even luck and perfect skill made him not to be conquered. It took many sittings with many lessons many hours long; but in time because of my young faculties--not too much cumbered of those thousand and one concerns to come with years and clamor for remembrance--I grew as perfect as Joe. And it was well I learned the secret when I did. Soon after, I became separated from Joe; I went southward to New Orleans and when I was next to New York Joe had disappeared. Nor could I find trace or sign of his whereabouts. He went in truth to his old village, and my earliest information thereof came only when the tavern host told the origin of the club-swinging ballet dancer then toeing it so gallantly on his gables. But while I parted with my friend, I never forgot him. The knowledge he gave double-armed me at the game. It became the reason of often riches in my hands, and was ever a resort when I erred over horse races or was beaten down by some storm of faro. Then it was profitably I recalled Casino Joe and his instructions; and his invincible secret of “How to tell the last four.”