92 About Betting and Gamhling. 



or eiglit (somehow seven is the best number) who know one- 

 anobher. Shuffle two packs of cards of the same make and 

 colour together, by which means you will have eight aces 

 and thirty-two tens. Buy counters, value sixpence a dozen,, 

 and start with five dozen each. Play at vingt-et-un, limit 

 stake to three counters, with leave to anyone who has an ace 

 dealt to him first card, which very often happens, to turn it 

 up and put a sixpence on it, in which case the dealer must 

 double all round ; ties to pay the dealer, and each to deal 

 three times running in turn ; as you are broke buy counters- 

 of each other. You may play all night at this, and if you 

 play fair and quick you won't win or lose a sovereign nine 

 times out of ten, and you will have all the honest fun and 

 excitement of gambling to the very hilt. If I was colonel ^ 

 of a regiment I should like to see this kind of fun going on 

 every night in the winter in the ante-rooms. Brother 

 ofiicers playing Avith one another come to no harm, and the 

 black sheep in a regiment is seldom a sociable cove — he i:* 

 playing some game outside or in his own quarters, with some 

 youngster from another regiment perhaps. There is one 

 golden rule, which is, name your stakes at starting, and 

 stick to them. The man who wants to play higher is the 

 man who thinks he can win — he is not playing for the game 

 but the money, and he would rob his own brother. Per 

 contra, I never in my life saw high play when someone did 

 not lose his temper, and someone did not go away without 

 a suspicion of sharp practice. 



And if you want the fun of betting, do as I have done 

 many a timie amongst my own friends, and sit down in a 

 cricket tent and announce that you open a sixpenny book 

 and give or take the odds on anything as it goes on, over by 

 over, and if you don't get some fun out of it it is your own 

 fault, and very little money will you win or lose if you know 

 the game ; and if you did the same in half-crowns on the 



