LUCK'S FAVOURITES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

LUCK'S FAVOURITES.

(By CYRIL P. CORRIGAN.)

Only a piece of paper —faded, tattered and old —yet, to tiie man who won it at a card game it meant wealth beyond the dreams of avarice! In the whole history of card playing there is no more epic yarn than this one, of the lone Briton in an Australian bush cabin who won a million pounds in one night, and <lid not realise how sweetly Fortune had smiled upon him. Gambling's golden age was the eighteenth century. Or it is supposed to have been so—but that's not at all sure. "The rage of play has. ever been the same," wrote Lady Mary Worthley Montagu. Her words are true to-day, and will be true a hundred years from now.

But one man is living in these days whose enormous wealth came to him all in one night over a single game of cards; and he freely admits how Chance handed to him his millions. It happened like this:

Less than half a century ago, a solitary young Englishman whom the lure of gold had drawl out to Australia was sitting by the door of his lone cabin in the bush, on the edge of a district combed by prospectors.

So far, luck had not come his way. He was just an amateur digger. And, just before sundown, when he was feeling perhaps a little more lonely than usual, and out of place in his big adventure, two horsemen rode up to his door and asked him if they might put up there for the night.

Stripped of All They Possessed,

They were travel-stained and grimy, obviously diggers, and rough diamonds at that. Fate had not, it seemed, smiled on them, either. They were welcome, as only guests can be in regions where their host has for days, perhaps, not spoken to a human soul. When all had eaten, they sat yarning awhile. Then, nothing left to talk about, yet the party loth to break up, the strangers proposed a game of cards. The host was no card-player, and he made a last stipulation, knowing .well the tenacity of the lonely gamblers of the Antipodes. "Only for the money on us," he said. "When that's finished, we finish, too?" "Agreed, partner!" answered both. Ecarte was the game, and the English "digger" held the bank. And be-

cause he had not wooed her, capricious

Fortune smiled upon him; within a short time he had reluctantly, stripped

his guests of all the cash they pos eessed.

But the night was still young for them, the spirit of play in their blood. As gamblers will, they longed for revenge, for that extra few minutes which would turn the scales of luck in their favour.

Again they searched their empty pockets over. Not a penny to be found! But out of an otherwise empty wallet one drew something, with > a wild look and a cry of "The paper! We'll play him for the paper!"

His mate as eagerly echoed him; they pulled up their chairs to the table again and explained to the hanker that here was a piece of paper worth at least ten pounds^—the title to a slice of mining property up country. Finally, though none too taken with the idea, the Englishman allowed himself to be persuaded by the zealous gamblers. A Stranger on Horseback. They played again, and again the host won. He could, it seemed, do nothing wrong with the cards, and his opponents could do nothing right.

And next morning, when he had seen the despoiled gamsters off on their way, full of a good breakfast and empty of malice, he rode along to his bank and deposited the dubious document there, with some loose cash.

A few days later a very odd thing happened. Once more at sundown a stranger on horseback rode np to this lonely place, and once more the English digger extended colonial hospitality to a passing wayfarer. And once again, the evening meal eaten, host and guest sat yarning of many things before turning in. Of course, • the story of the last guests at the hut, the card game and the £10 piece of paper cropped up. Keen interest shone in the stranger's eyes. "Tell you what," said he, with a show of frankness, "I like that story. Call me quixotic if you like—but I'll give you £10 for that darned piece of paper!" "I don't think I want to sell," said the paper's owner. "Damme, I'm a fool, man," persisted the visitor. "I'm a regular baby! I'll give you twenty pounds, for I've kinda taken a fancy to that there piece of paper!" The Englishman shook his head and laughed. "Nothing doing!" said he. Next morning at breakfast they talked of the paper again. The guest—who by the way, was not of the ordinary digger variety, but a somewhat debonair gentleman, in spite of his rough colonial getup—now more than ever showed eagerness when the mysterious document was mentioned. He bid up another ten pounds. Unsuccessful, he rode away. ...

Only after a few days, to return with an offer of one hundred or two hundred pounds for that grimy piece of paper, the holder of which was by now convinced that it was worth keeping at any price. Shared His Luck With Losers. So he kept it. To become, through it, the owner of one of the richest diggings in the whole of Australia. Some shares he disposed of to the tune of £1,000,000: and besides that he remained a director of the company formed to work the land. Thankful for his good fortune, he sought out the two luckless gamblers who had all unconsciously assisted that night in the log-hut, by the light of guttering candles, at a card game for £1,000,000, and had set him on this easy road to riches. He shared his luck with them—a happier fate theirs than usually falls to the careless and gay!

Tales, too, are told of men who have suffered all the privations of the early diggers —at last to strike gold, to become wealthy overnight and, next morning in some squalid gambling den, to become poorer and far more despairing than ever they had been before. Living not far from London recently, and on a few paltry shillings a week, was a man who in his youth in South Africa, discovered diamonds worth a king's ransom. Within a few years he had sold his diamonds and his holding, to squander everything he possessed at the gaming-tables at Monte Carlo.

"Apricot Joe" they called this gambling diamond-miner out on the diggings, because of his habit of invariably refer-

TALES OF RECKLESS GAMBLERS.

ring to diamonds ' f as big, man, as- apricot:: '. " and Joe won local fame by organising weird gambling contests and wagering huge sums of money on tliem. against his fellow-diggers. One of the most famous of all these contests has passed into diamond-mine history as "Apricot's Leg-bet," because it depended upon the beauty and symmetry of a young woman's limbs! "Apricot Joe" was notorious as a connoisseur of feminine charm, and he boasted that one of the local dance-hall beauties, upon whom he was spending fabulous sums of money, had the prettiest leg in the whole of the district.

"Apricot Joe's" Curious Wager.

A contest was organised, and scouts were sent out to invite as many ladies as could be found within a given radius. And on the day of the judging, which was to be done by a miner who was said once to have been a London artist, it was found that no less than a round

dozen daughters of Eve had been assembled, each positive that her limbs would earn her the coveted title. Before the all-important moment of the measuring and the judging, "Apricot Joe" had staked £10,000 against a fellow digger's £8000 that his girl friend would be adjudged the winner. Joe's girl was the winner. And immediately his rival heard the announcement he went back to his room and shot himself dead. I confess that- one of the most thrilling talcs of gambling I have ever heard was that told to me not long ago about a young provincial bank cashier. It had all the elements of tragedy and comedy in it; luckily the comedy predominated. This youth had taken to backing horses, in a very mild way; yet his racing losses were sufficient to get him into trouble which he dared not mention at home. So he fell, as so many before him have fallen. He helped himself to a small amount of the firm's money which every day passed through his hands. He was due to go on holiday and — miraculously—ins defalcations had not been discovered. He replaced a little of the money just before his first day of leave; he did not venture to replace the rest of the few pounds he had inhand.

More in agony of mind than through any desire either to recoup himself or to gamble for the sake of gambling, he betook himself to a Continental casino.

Here, listlessly and dispiritedly, he strode into the roulette room. He placed a modest stake on a number, quite blindly. And he won. Again all on the same number—and again he won. Most Callous Gambler. Now things were getting exciting; and some obscure instinct led the young man, as yet almost unconscious of his luck, to place his now considerable winnings on a very different number—the reverse, in fact, of the last one. Three times he staked on this number; three times the wheel stopped as though specially for him. He changed his number once more, and changed again and again, always playing in a series of three, and always lucky. That evening he left the casino with £3000. He took the next boat back to England. Undated by his success, with indeed a dreadful imagination of exposure and imprisonment always in his mind, he waited wretchedly through the remaining weary days of his holiday. At last he was back again on his stool behind the bank grille.

He searched every face, fearing that in his absence his guilt must have become known. But no, he was safe. He replaced the money. But at the last, one must admit that the gamester acquires a callous heart. Of this the classic example is, appropriately enough, a king—Louis XIV. of France. His Majesty was at the card table one night—or one dawn—when an elderly courtier fell from his seat beside him. There was a flutter at the card table, a pause in play. "Why do you wait, gentlemen?" asked the King. "Monsieur X-*-, Sire," they answered. "Monsieur X—, he is ill, Sire!" "111?" echoed the Xing, glancing over his shoulder at the man lying on the floor. "111? He is dead. Gentlemen, hearts are trumps."