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Volume I
The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz, Volume II
I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV
Piquet, Basset, Faro, Hazard, Passe-Dix, Put, Cross And Pile,Thimble-Rig
p>'Some thirty years ago English Hazard was a favourite game inIreland, and Dublin could boast of three or four hells doing a
brisk trade. The most frequented and longest established was
called "The Coal Hole," being situated on the coal quay. Here,
at any hour after midnight, a motley company might be seen, each
individual, however, well known to the porter, who jealously
scanned his features before drawing back the noiseless bolts
which secured the door. The professional gambler trying to live
by his winnings, the fashionable swell finishing his round of
excitement, the struggling tradesman hoping to avert impending
bankruptcy, the prize-fighter, and, more conspicuous than any,
the keen-eyed usurer with his roll of notes and sheaf of bill
stamps, were to be found there. Many strange scenes have
occurred in this house, some followed by tragic consequences too
painful to relate, others ridiculous and amusing. Here it was
that an angry caster, having lost his last sovereign and his
temper, also placed his black hat in the centre of the table,
swore that it was white, and finding no one disposed to dispute
his accuracy, flung himself from the room, and enabled the next
player who had won so largely and smiled so good-humouredly to
take the box in turn. But fortune deserted him also, and left
him penniless, when, glaring savagely round the room, and
striking the table violently, he thundered forth the inquiry,
"Where was the rascal who said his hat was white?" It was here
also (although the venue has been changed by story-mongers) that
a well-known frequenter of the house, a sporting M.P., on one
occasion dropped on the 'door or in the passage a bank-note
without discovering his loss till he had reached home. On the
next evening he returned to inquire for it in a forlorn-hope
spirit, when the following conversation took place between him
and the porter:--
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