"I haven't played any cards on railroad trains, even with friends, for the past seven years," said Joe Pinckney, the Boston traveling man who sells bridges and trestles in every land, at a New York hotel the other night, "and it's more than certain that, for the remainder of my string, I shall never again sit into a train game, whether it's old maid, casino, whist or draw—especially draw. I used to play cards most of the time when I was on the road just to relieve the monotony of traveling. I don't recall that it ever cost me much, for I generally broke even and often a little ahead on a years' play. I very rarely sat into a game in which all of the other players were strangers to me, especially when the game was draw or something else at so much a corner, and so I never got done out of a cent.

"I know so many traveling men that a drummer friend of mine has an even money bet with me that I won't be able to board a single train, anywhere in this country, for the space of a year, without my being greeted by some traveling chap with whom I am acquainted, and he wins up to date, though the bet was made more than eight months ago. So that, when I used to be in the habit of playing cards on the trains I always had some fellow or fellows on the other side of the table that I knew to be on the level. But I had an experience on a Western train seven years ago that sort o' soured me on the train game; in fact, that experience knocked a good deal of the poker enthusiasm out of me, and since then, whenever I've got into a game with friends or acquaintances in a hotel room, I've sized them up pretty carefully to see if they were all robust men. Maybe you don't understand what possible connection there can be between physical robustness and the game of American draw just now, but you'll understand it when I tell you of this experience.

"In the spring of 1891 I got aboard the night train of the 'Q,' Chicago to Denver. The train left Chicago at 9 o'clock at that time. When I was seven years younger than I am now I never sought a sleeper bunk until 1 or 2 in the morning, and when I found that there wasn't a man on this sleeper with whom I had ever a bowing acquaintance I felt a bit lonesome. I started through the train to hunt up the news butcher to get from him a bunch of traveling literature, and in the car ahead of me I found Tom Danforth, the Michigan stove man, an old traveling pal of mine. I sat down to have a talk with Tom when along came George Dunwoody, the Chicago perfumery man, who had also paralleled me a lot of times on trips. Inside of four minutes I had pulled both of 'em back to my car and we had a game of cut-throat draw under way in the smoking compartment. We started in at quarter ante and dollar limit, but when I pulled 'way ahead of of both of them within an hour or so and they struck for dollar ante and five-dollar limit, I was agreeable.

"We were plugging along at this game, all three of us going pretty slow, and both of them gradually getting back the money I had won in the smaller game, when a tall, very thin and very gaunt-looking young fellow of about thirty entered the smoking compartment and dropped into a seat with the air of a very tired man. I sat facing the entrance to the compartment, and I thought when I saw the man's emaciated condition and the two bright spots on his cheekbones, 'Old man, you've pretty nearly arrived at your finish, and if you're making for Denver now I think you're a bit too late.' My two friends didn't see the consumptive when he entered the room, for their backs were turned to the door, but when, while I was dealing the cards, the new arrival put his hand to his mouth and gave a couple of short, hacking coughs, Dunwoody turned around suddenly and looked at him.

"'Why, hello there, Fatty,' exclaimed Dunwoody, holding out his hand to the emaciated man, 'where are you going? Denver? Why, I thought you were there long ago? Didn't I tell you last fall to go there or to Arizona for the winter? D'ye mean to say that you've been in Chicago all winter with that half a lung and that bark o' yours? How are you now, anyhow, Fat?'

"The emaciated man smiled the weary smile of the consumptive.

"'Oh, I'm all right, George,' he said, sort o' hanging on to Dunwoody's hand. 'Going out to Denver to croak this trip, I guess. Didn't want to go, but my people got after me and they're chasing me out there. I wanted them to let me stay in Chicago and make the finish there, but they wouldn't stand for it. My mother and one of my sisters are coming along after me next week.'

"'Finish? What are you giving us, Fatty?' asked Dunwoody, good-naturedly, but not with a great amount of belief in his own words, I imagine. 'You'll be selling terra cotta tiles when the rest of us'll be wearing skull caps and cloth shoes. Cut out the finish talk. You look pretty husky, all right.'

"'Oh, I'm husky all right,' said the consumptive, with another weary smile, and then he had another coughing spell. When that was over Dunwoody introduced him to us.

"'Ed, alias Fatty, Crowhurst,' was Dunwoody's way of introducing him. 'Sells tiles, waterworks pipes and conduits. Called Fatty because he's nearly six and a half feet high, has never weighed more than thirty-seven pounds (give or take a few), and has never since any one knew him had more'n half a lung. Thinks he's sick, and has laid himself on the shelf for over a year past. No sicker than I am. Used to have the record west of the Alleghanies for cigarette smoking. You've cut the cigarettes out, haven't you, Fat?'

"For reply the consumptive pulled out a gold cigarette case, extracted a cigarette therefrom and lit it. It was a queer thing to see a man in his state of health smoking a cigarette. Dunwoody's eyes stuck out over it.

"'Well, if you ain't a case of perambulating, lingering suicide, Fatty, I never saw one,' said he to his friend.

"'It's all one,' was the reply. 'It's too much punishment to give 'em up, and it wouldn't make any difference anyhow.'

"I had meanwhile dished the hands out, and after my two friends had drawn cards and I made a small bet they threw up their hands.

"'Draw, eh?' said the emaciated man, addressing Dunwoody. 'How about making it four-handed?'

"'Oh, you'd better take it out in sleeping, Fat,' replied Dunwoody. 'You look just a bit tired, and we're going to make a night of it, most likely, with whisky trimmings. You can't do that very well without hurting yourself, and if you came in and we got into you you'd feel like playing until you evened up, and 'ud get no rest. Better not come in, Fat. Better hit your bunk for a long snooze. We'll have breakfast together when they hitch on the dining car at Council Bluffs.'

"'I haven't sat into a game of draw for a long while,' said Dunwoody's friend, 'and I'd rather play than eat.'

"There was a bit of pathos in that remark, I thought, and I kicked Dunwoody under the table.

"'Well, jump in then, Fatty,' said Dunwoody, and the poor chap drew a chair up to the table with a look of pleasure on his drawn, hollow face, with its two brightly burning spots on the cheekbones.

"It soon became apparent that Dunwoody's fear about our 'getting into' the consumptive didn't stand any show whatever of being realized. The emaciated man was an almighty good poker player, nervy, cool, and cautious, and yet a good bit audacious at that. I caught him four-flushing and bluffing on it several times, but he got my money right along in the general play, all the same, and after an hour's play he had the whole three of us on the run. I was about $100 to the rear, and Dunwoody and Danforth had each contributed a bit more than that to the consumptive's stack of chips. The fact was, he simply outclassed the three of us as a poker player—and, by the way, I wonder why it is that men that have got something the matter with their lungs are invariably such rattling good poker players? I've noticed this right along. I never yet sat into a poker game with a man that had consumption in one stage or another of it that he didn't make me smoke a pipe for a spell. That would be a good one to spring on some medical sharp for an explanation.

"By the time midnight came around Dunwoody's friend with the pulmonary trouble had won about half as much again from us, and Dunwoody began to look at his watch nervously. The three of us were taking a little nip at frequent intervals, just enough to brush the cobwebs away, but the sick-looking man didn't touch a drop. He smoked one cigarette after another, however, inhaling the smoke into his shrunken lungs, and the sight made all of us feel sorry, I guess, for the foolhardiness of the man. Finally Dunwoody looked at his watch and then raised his eyes and took a survey of the countenance of the consumptive, which was overspread with a deep flush. The consumptive's eyes were extraordinarily bright, too.

"'Fatty,' said Dunwoody, 'cash in and go to bed. 'You've had enough of this. Poker and 112 cigarettes for a one-lunger bound for Colorado for his health! Cash in and skip!'

"'No, I don't want to quit, George,' said the consumptive. 'I haven't had anything like enough yet. What's more, I've got all of you fellows too much in the hole. I only wanted to come in for the fun of it, anyhow, and here I am with a lot of the coin of the three of you. I'll just play on until this pay streak deserts me and give you fellows a chance to win out.'

"When he finished saying this the man with the wasted lungs had another violent spell of coughing and Dunwoody looked worried. But he gave in.

"'All right, Fat,' he said, 'do as you derned please, but I don't want to be boxing you up and shipping you back to the lake front.'

"Then the game proceeded. I don't think any of us felt exactly right, playing with a man who looked as if his days were as short-numbered as a child's multiplication table, but maybe the fact that he was such a comfortable winner from us mitigated our sympathy for him just a little bit. He kept on winning steadily for the next hour, and about half past 1 in the morning there was a good-sized jackpot. It went around half a dozen times, all of us sweetening it for five every time the deal passed, and finally, on the seventh deal, which was the consumptive's, Danforth, who sat on his left, opened the pot. I stayed, and so did Dunwoody. When it was up to the dealer he nodded his head to indicate that he would stay. We were all looking at him, and we noticed that he had gone pale. It was noticeable after the deep flush that had covered his face when he entered.

"Danforth took two cards. I drew honestly and to my hand, which had a pair of kings in it, and I caught another one. Dunwoody asked for three and then the dealer put the deck down beside him.

"'How many is the dealer dishing himself?' we all happened to ask in chorus.

"'None,' answered the sick man, who seemed to be getting paler all the time.

"'Pat, hey, Fatty?' said Dunwoody. 'Must be pretty well fixed, or, say, are you woozy enough to try a bluff on this? You don't expect to bluff Danforth out of his own pot?'

"The consumptive only smiled a wan smile.

"'Well, I hope you are well fixed,' went on Dunwoody, 'for it's your last hand. I'm going to send you to your bunk as soon as I win this jack.'

"'The limit,' said Danforth, the pot-opener, skating five white chips into the center.

"'Five more,' said I, putting the chips in.

"'I'll call both of you,' said Dunwoody, shoving ten chips into the pile.

"It was up to Dunwoody's consumptive friend. He opened his lips to speak and little dabs of blood appeared at both corners of his mouth. His head fell back and at the same time the cards in his hands fell face up on the table. The hand was an ace high flush of diamonds. Dunwoody was standing over him in an instant, and Danforth and I both jumped up. Dunwoody wiped the blood away from the man's mouth with his handkerchief and then put the back of his hand on the man's face.

"'It's cold,' said Dunwoody, with a queer look.

"Then he placed his ear to his friend's heart. We waited for him to look up with a good deal of suspense. He raised his head after about thirty seconds.

"'Crowhurst's dead,' was all he said.

"Dunwoody telegraphed ahead for an undertaker to meet the train at Omaha. He gathered up the cards, too, and the chips.

"'Crowhurst won that pot,' he whispered to us. 'His pat flush beat all of our threes.'

"Dunwoody was banker and he cashed all of the dead man's chips. Then he took Crowhurst's body back from Omaha to Chicago in a box. Dunwoody handed the $580 the dead man had won from us to his mother, telling her that her son had given him the money to keep for him before turning into his sleeper bunk.

"That," concluded the man who sells bridges and trestles, "is the reason I've cut card-playing on trains for the past seven years."