alliance with a certain Chaffard, whose business it was to travel the country and discover dupes for them. When this was done, the Marquis put up at the best hotel in the town, and Andreas, apparently a stranger, worked the telegram for him, which Houdin describes in the following way: Although there are thirty-two cards in a piquet pack, they can all be designated by twelve different signs; that is, eight for the nature of the cards, and four for the colours. At écarté the number of signals is even more reduced, as it is only necessary to indicate the court cards. These are extremely simple: the accomplice stands behind the adversary and works in this way. If the Comtois looks at 1. His partner, he means 2. The opponent's hand 3. The stake 4. The opposite side a king; a queen; an ace ; and while indicating the cards, he makes their colour known by the following sight: 1. The mouth slightly open. 2. The mouth shut. 3. The upper lip drawn slightly over the lower hearts; Andreas was a very valuable partner, and his coolness never deserted him. On one occasion he managed to win a large sum at a private house, but was detected in cheating, ordered to give up his spoil, and then be thrown out of window. He gave up the purse in which he had apparently placed his winnings, leaped out of the window, and disappeared. When the players went to divide the money in the purse, they found it. full of counters. Andreas, in spite of all his terror, had managed to carry off his gains, for, with an eye to eventualities, he always carried two purses precisely alike. Hearing of a physician at Saint-Omer who was particularly fond of play, the confederates determined to fleece him: For this purpose the Marquis took to his bed, and called the doctor in. He became gradually convalescent, and cards were introduced at his bedside, and we need hardly say that ere long the doctor fell into the trap, and dropped several thousand francs. At Lyons they played a clever trick with a diamond ring, which Andreas sold to a gentleman in that city, who was very fond of precious stones, after warning him distinctly that it was paste. The purchaser had it valued, and insisted on buying. Andreas consented, and handed him a paste ring, as he had professed. The dupe, however, was too cunning for Andreas: he followed him to Paris, and by a very ingenious device managed to get the real ring out of him. One of the cruelest tricks was performed at St. Omer on a young man of good family, Olivier de N. He was dissipated and idle, and one of the gang formed his acquaintance. After a while, he induced him to cheat at cards, and gave him lessons. When he was ready, the fellow found an ostensibly rich country gentleman to be fleeced, and Olivier was set upon him. At first he was very successful, but luck presently changed, and, obeying the instructions of his false friend, he lost 100,000 francs. His opponent insisted on his paying, and he had to give short bills for the whole amount, under the threat of being arrested as a card-sharper, for his adversary detected him in the operation called sauter la coupe. He confessed all to his family, who paid the money: the pretended country gentleman was, in fact, a notorious card-sharper, procured from Paris to carry out the atrocious scheme. Raymond, however, in spite of the sums he netted by these and other schemes, could never keep any money, for he had a fatal idea about breaking the bank at Baden-Baden. He invented the most clever combinations, which resulted in the loss of all his money. Great was Houdin's surprise, therefore, at seeing him some years later in Paris, seated in an elegant brougham. The explanation, however, was simple: a brother had died, leaving him a considerable fortune, and he had forsworn cards. Among the machinery employed by the Greeks, we may mention a ring, hollow, and forming a reservoir filled with very limpid ink. In dealing, the sharper makes a slight mark on the back of the cards, imperceptible to any eye but his own, after the arrangement so fully described in Houdin's Memoirs. In cheating at dominoes, the ring is massive, and has a small spike in the part turned inward, with which the dominoes are marked. Another ingenious trick is a snuff-box, having a medallion on the cover: this the Greek hands round, but, on beginning to play, by touching a spring the medallion disappears, leaving a small mirror, in which the Greek sees the cards as he deals them to his adversary. As we have said, it is impossible, without the aid of diagrams, to explain the technical portion of this peculiar book; we can only send our readers to it who are anxious to learn all the roguery that can be practised at cards. There is one chapter on little tricks, sanctioned by custom, which is worth attending to, as it opens up a curious field of study. In common life it is easy enough to draw the line of demarcation on which all honest people are agreed, but at cards, though we know perfectly well where cheating ends, it is very difficult to decide where it begins. We will give a few instances. You may be playing with an awkward gentleman, who classifies his trumps too openly: how can you help taking advantage of this? Again, it may happen, through an accident, that the cards are rendered transparent by the vicinity of a light, and you can see through their backs. Ought we not to warn him? Or, what shall we say to an opponent who, playing at écarté, consults the gallery, as he has a right to do, as to whether he should play without proposing, but presently asks for cards? It may be supposed that he has a fine hand, and only proposes through prudence. You are mistaken: he discards his whole hand, for his object was to deceive his opponent, and he generally does so, if the latter be inexperienced. Another, before proposing, will look at his counters, as if preparing to mark the king, but thinks better of it, and asks for cards, which, in your fright, you grant him. Again, at écarté you may be at three, and your opponent asks how you stand, apparently forgetting the fact. You say you are at three, and that seems to decide him, and he proposes. You fancy that his hand must be a good one, and you would act unwisely in declining; you, therefore, give him-five cards, for this little farce was intended for an intimidation: he held nothing. Some players have the habit of displaying on their faces exactly the opposite of what they feel: if they have a strong hand, they will eagerly ask for cards; in the other event, they hesitate prior to proposing. Others, again, when holding good cards, pretend to be angry and frown, while with a bad hand they seem pleased and anxious to play. It will happen sometimes at écarté, that a player, at the end of a deal, is in doubt as to which card of two he should throw away, as one of them may save the vole. Instead of relying on the adage, “he who keeps a diamond is never capoted," he lays the two cards on the table, face upwards, and watches on which his opponent's eye rests. He profits by this, and saves himself. This plan is infallible; but is it delicate? On this point the following anecdote is told: At a game of piquet played for very high stakes, one of the players was on the point of being capoted. He still had two cards to play, the king of hearts and the king of spades; one of them may save him, but chance alone can favour him in the choice of the one he keeps. He laid them on the table, and, after some hesitation, resolved to keep the king of spades, when he felt a slight pressure on his foot. Our man, accepting this sign as a revelation, altered his mind and kept the king of hearts. The result was that he was capoted. The loser complained of the mistake he had been made to commit, and insisted on knowing who had given him the perfidious advice. He discovered that it was his opponent, who got out of the scrape by declaring that he had touched his foot accidentally. We will leave it to the reader to decide on the degree of delicacy of the two players. It is not usual at écarté for a spectator to bet first on one side and then on the other; whether he punts or not, he remains faithful to the player he has first chosen. Some players, however, manage to profit by this in the following way. Two persons go partners, and place themselves in the opposite galleries. If one player has a good hand, at an agreed-on sign, the partner who is on his side, offers a large wager, while the other abstains from betting, and vice versa. These manoeuvres are certainly very innocent, yet people do not confess them. In four-handed games, as for instance, whist, partners must not make any communications, except those authorised by custom; but some persons go further, and indulge in nervous movements and contortions of the face, which inform their partners sufficiently of the nature of their hand. At écarté some players, when shuffling the cards, allow their opponent to see the bottom card of the pack. Houdin has known people profit by this indiscretion in the following way. The dealer offers the pack for cutting. They are cut so as to leave less than eleven cards on the table: now, as these cards are dealt in the next hand, the result is that if the observer does not hold the card he has seen, it must be in his adversary's possession. Everybody is aware that the knowledge of a card is very valuable at écarté. Here is another fact, too, which we will offer for our readers' appreciation. In certain games, and specially at écarté, the suits will gradually come together, as the rules demand that the player should follow suit. It is difficult to credit it, but it is a fact which experiment may confirm, that, however well cards may be shuffled in the ordinary way, it is very rare for two or three cards that have come together to be separated. Suppose that a clever player, when his adversary takes up the cards to shuffle, has noticed among them a sequence to the king, say king, queen, and knave of hearts. We will now see the advan2 M VOL. XLIX. tage he may derive from this. On the very fair supposition that the sequence has not been disturbed in shuffling, if the observer, after the cards have been deait, has the king in his hand, and this card is the second of the first two dealt, he may assume that the queen and knave, which came next, are in the other player's hand. In the other case, if the knave be the first of the three cards last dealt, the king and queen may be in his opponent's hand. If, lastly, the king be turned up, the other two cards will be on the pack. In following these tactics may not a man be involuntarily tempted to neglect shuffling, in order to favour the result of so intelligent an observation? It frequently happens at bouillotte that a player who has a bad hand will offer a high stake, for the purpose of intimidation, and making the other players pass. This trick frequently succeeds, but, on account of the impropriety of the process, it is not tolerated in many play-houses. Here is a case in point, attributed, whether rightly or wrongly, to M. de Talleyrand: That gentleman was playing at bouillotte: he had dealt, and, according to custom, awaited his turn to speak. The two first players passed. "Ten louis," said the first. "Twenty," said M. de Talleyrand. Forty," the other went on. "My whole," the diplomatist said, boldly, as he pointed to one hundred louis he had before him. But at this moment a card slipped from his hand, which he hurriedly picked up. His opponent, however, had time to notice this card-a nine; and though he held a brelan of kings, he thought it prudent to decline, for he naturally assumed that M. de Talleyrand had a very good hand. This belief was increased by the fact that the turn-up card was a nine, and that, in all probability, the nine that fell from the diplomatist's hand formed part of a brelan carré. The cards were shown, and M. de Talleyrand won the stake with a wretched hand. And here we must stop, though assuredly not from lack of material. In conclusion, we are bound to express our opinion that M. RobertHoudin's book will do good; for, although he teaches us how to detect cardsharpers, any one who fancied he could learn the modus operandi from the volume would be mistaken. Nor do we think that Houdin's revelations are of a nature to induce any one to enter the ranks of the Greeks, for it is evident that the apprenticeship is a very lengthy and troublesome affair, and that a man must be born to the profession. We have no doubt that M. Houdin can perform all the tricks, and many others he has not alluded to; but it must be borne in mind that he has spent a lifetime in the pursuit of the art, and is a man of the greatest integrity. Still even he, honest gentleman as he is, cannot altogether conceal the admiration he has felt at the detection of any super-excellent piece of roguery. The golden rule with respect to cards seems to be "never play at all"-not with strangers, for they may cheat you, and certainly not with friends, who, according to M. Robert-Houdin, are more dangerous and more to be feared than even those "Greeks who presents bring." HOW I WAS TRACKED BY TRAPPERS; OR, THE EVILS THAT CAME FROM A MAUDE AND A MEERSCHAUM. BY OUIDA. I. " THE ACQUAINTANCE I MADE ON BOARD THE LORD WARDEN." LAST Spring I thought I would run over to Paris, a friend of mine, attaché to the British Legation, wanted me to see his mare Cantonnière run at Chantilly; so one morning I put myself in the express for Folkestone with a dear, dashing little widow (who was perusing Bentley, and asked me if I did not think "that fellow Ouida had been jilted by some woman, he was so spiteful on the beau sexe's shortcomings"), and got on board the Lord Warden, with Mills and the luggage and my bull-dog Pontos, who has a black patch over one eye, and might pass for a Chelsea pensioner in a state of Soul Transmigration. Much yachting has given me an ægis, thank Heaven! against any soupçon of mal de mer, and I leaned against the side of the deck looking at the passengers, with Pontos looking out of his black patch, and making an inventory of them likewise, probably with a keen eye to business, in the way of legs that might be snapped at with impunity. Pontos's mission in life was snapping at legs, and he naturally viewed people through that medium. Everybody looks through his own glass, be it a burnt or a Claude one, and will be shot if he will look through anybody's else. Why might not Pontos, too? Canine snapping at enemies' ankles is not more dangerous than human snapping at friends' characters and reputations, is it? There were a good many people on board: there were Smith, Brown, and Jones, of course, looking miserably ill, but talking of the Hopera and "'Ide Park" with sickly smiles. I never travel but I see that genus somewherewretched swells who make me ready to cut off my own moustaches in disgust, and dress in serge and sackcloth, when I see their horrible stubbly caricatures, and their shocking onslaught on taste and ties. There were pretty girls in hats lisping Longfellow's poem on The Sea and petting infinitesimal terriers with shy glances at us, to show how they would pet us, if we would let them. There were a bride and bridegroom, who seemed to find romance uncommonly slow work with a rough sea, and a hard-hearted steward, and a small storm of smuts from the funnel, which seemed as destructive to the lady's temper as they decidedly were to her bonnet. There was a vieille fille, who, on embarking, expressed her opinion that "it was beautiful," referring to the sea by that laudatory epithet, which fickle element felt the compliment so little, that, instead of returning it, it tossed her in ten minutes' time into the most complete antithesis of beauty that ever the female countenance could be imagined to present; and there was an odd, mean, little old man, |