"They laugh who win," remarked Cleveland, with something of coldness
in his manner.
"Ha! ha! ha!" was the only answer of Kingsley to this remark. The
other continued--and I now clearly perceived that his purpose was
provocation:-"It is certainly a pleasure to win your money, Kingsley--you bear
it with so much philosophy. Nay, it seems to give you pleasure,
and thus lessens the pain I should otherwise feel in receiving the
fruits of my superiority."
"Ha! ha! ha!" again repeated Kingsley. "Excuse me, Mr. Cleveland.
I am reminded of your remark, 'They laugh who win.' I am laughing,
as it were, anticipatively. I am so certain that I shall have my
revenge to-night."
Cleveland looked at him for a moment with some curiosity, then
called:-"Philip!"
He was answered by a young mulatto--a tall, good-looking fellow,
who approached with a mixed air of equal deference and self-esteem,
plaited frills to a most immaculately white shirt-collar, a huge
bulbous breastpin in his bosom, chains and seals, and all the usual
equipments of Broadway dandyism. The fellow approached us with
a smile; his eyes looking alternately to Cleveland and Kingsley,
and, as I fancied, with no unequivocal sneer in their expression,
as they settled on the latter. A significance of another kind
appeared in the look of Cleveland as he addressed him.
"Get us the pictures, Philip--the latest cuts--and bring--ay, you
may bring the ivories."
In a few moments, the preliminaries being despatched, the two were
seated at a table, and a couple of packs of cards were laid beside
them. Kingsley drew my attention to the cards. They were of a
kind that my experience had never permitted me to see before. In
place of ordinary kings and queens and knaves, these figures were
represented in attitudes and costumes the most indecent--such
as the prolific genius of Parisian bawdry alone could conceive
and delineate. It seems to be a general opinion among rogues that
knavery is never wholly triumphant unless the mind is thoroughly
degraded; and for this reason it is, perhaps, that establishments
devoted to purposes like the present, have, in most countries, for
their invariable adjuncts, the brothel and the bar-room. If they
are not in the immediate tenement, they are sufficiently nigh to
make the work of moral prostitution comparatively easy, in all its
ramifications, with the young and inconsiderate mind. Kingsley
turned over the cards, and I could see that while affecting to
show me the pictures he was himself subjecting the cards to a close
inspection of another kind. This object was scarcely perceptible
to myself, who knew his suspicions, and could naturally conjecture
his policy. It did not excite the alarm of his antagonist.
The parties sat confronting each other. Kingsley drew forth a wallet,
somewhat ostentatiously, which he laid down beside him. The sight
of his wallet staggered me. By its bulk I should judge it to have
held thousands; yet he had assured me that he had nothing beside,
the one hundred dollars which he had procured from me. My surprise
increased as I saw him open the wallet, and draw from one of its
pockets the identical roll which I had put into his hands. The
bulk of the pocket-book seeemed (sic) scarcely to be diminished.
My suspicions were beginning to be roused. I began to think that
he had told me a falsehood; but he looked up at this instant, and
a bright manly smile on his deep purposeful countenance, reassured
me. I felt that there was some policy in the business which was not
for me then to fathom. The cards were cut. A box of dice was also
in the hands of Cleveland.