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Volume I

The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II

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The Gaming Clubs

2. THE COCOA-TREE CLUB.

This club was remarkable for high if not for foul play. Walpole,
writing to Horace Mann in 1780, says:--'Within this week there
has been a cast at Hazard at the Cocoa-tree (in St James's
Street) the difference of which amounted to one hundred and
fourscore thousand pounds! Mr O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had
won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr Harvey of Chigwell,
just started into an estate by his elder brother's death.
O'Birne said,--"You can never pay me." "I can," said the youth,
"my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said O'Birne, "I will
win ten thousand,--you shall throw for the odd ninety." They
did, and Harvey won!'

3. GRAHAM'S CLUB.

This gaming club is remarkable for a scandal which made some
noise at the time of its occurrence, and one version of which a
writer in the Times has been at some pains to rectify. In Mr
Duncombe's 'Life' of his father occurs the following account of
this curious transaction.

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