Which, of course, brought down to his place on the bar a small glass and a large bottle. He had never done a thing like this in all the calm days of his existence, but now the deed came naturally enough. He poured his glass and even echoed the other remarks of 'Here's how.' When the fiery liquor arrived in his stomachical regions he realized with perfect clarity that it was without doubt some newly invented substitute for whisky; perhaps that jackass-brandy which he had heard of. His emotion was twofold: he was glad that Helen was at the hotel and he was determined not to repeat the dose.
'That's the goods,' said Longstreet jocularly, trying to smack his lips.
Barbee led the way to the nearest table and out of the nowhere brought into the here a deck of cards. Longstreet was on the verge of applauding when he noted that every one else accepted the act as a matter of fact, and subsided into himself and into a chair at the same moment.
'Who'll make it four-cornered?' demanded Barbee. 'Short, but lively while she lasts. Little old game, name of stud horse?'
Two of the Mexicans, having hesitated and then looked to Barbee, came forward and deposited themselves carelessly in the two chairs. Barbee shuffled, cut, shuffled again and put the cards down.
'Cut for deal,' he ordered.
When each of the other men had leaned forward and lifted a sheaf of cards, Longstreet divided the remainder. The deal went to Barbee. And what is more, Longstreet understood why; Barbee showed the highest card, a king. Longstreet straightened in his chair and his interest grew; he went over in mind what he had learned at the ranch. A pair beats a stiff, two pair beat a pair, threes beat two pair and so on. It was simplicity itself and here was he, Professor Edward Longstreet, measuring his judgment against that of Mexican Mendoza, Mexican Chavez and Yellow Barbee, cowpuncher. Ready from the flip of the first card to concede that these gentlemen had had a rather wider experience with card-playing, none the less he realized the superiority of his mentality, his greater intellectual training, and fully expected something more than just an 'even break.' He concealed the faces of his cards cannily and gave his scholarly brain entirely to a pleasant task in mathematics.
Through many years of training he was familiar with abstruse problems; hence it may be forgiven him, if, at first blush, this form of poker appeared simplicity itself. He reasoned thus: There were fifty-two cards in the full deck; there were exactly four, neither more nor less, of each ace, deuce, trey and so forth until one got to the king; there were, also, just four men drawing cards; each man, if he played his hand out, could draw five cards. All of this was data; it seemed as though he had x and y given and was merely to find z. His eye, as the game began, registered zest.