THE CARD SHARPER

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 27

THE CARD SHARPER

OPERATIONS ON A LINER. AA’HAT THE PURSER 3AAV. When a passenger uses in his cabin a kettle with a funnel on the spout I know that- lie is either an invalid or a cardeharper. Invalids use this apparatus for their chests and sharpers treat 'their finger-tips thus. There has just died a card player of international reputation (writes a ship’s purser in a London paper). The lest time I saw him —that was just before the trans-Atlantic lines refused, so to speak, to serve him.—he was sitting before a fire at a big London hotel. On the -fire was a kettle with a steaming funnel, and he was applying pumice stone tc tho tips of his fiilgers. He had the most delicate fingers in the world. His gloves, which he alw-ays wore when he was not playing cards, were specially made for him and lined with the softest down. The pumice stone removed the superfluous skin from his finger-tips. It wae said that his fingers were so sensitive that he could distinguish by feeling the underside of a card as he held it face downwards whether it was a court card, an ace, or an ordinary _ card. The last time he crossed the Atlantic he joined the boat after the last- passenger had gone aboard. During that trip he won enough to pay for his saloon passage, and there was a small margin of profit. It is the ship’s purser’s business to recognise these gentry and to protect the other passengers. It is his business also to do so without, arousing any scandal which will 3ffect the company. Again, it is his business (and this is most difficult to all) to warn foolish passengers against playing poker with a man who understands how-to “stack” cards. The foolish passengers always resent interference, thinking that they can spot the flicker of the wrist which, they imagine, accompanies such dishonest dealings, and the “ sharp ” can be convincingly indignant if he hears that prying people are warning the “ pigeons.” As a matter of fact the trans-Atlantic “ sharp ” works harder for his living than most people. When he drinks with prospective “pigeons” he must dispose of meat of his cocktails by other means than swallowing them. Usually an adjacent flower-pot understudies his throat. He must live a more healthy life than any average man of the world in order that his nerves may be always in good condition. And he must be a man of education who can discuss any subject with any man. There are trees which grow- to a certain height and then develop twisted, unsightly branches. Most international “ crooks ” resembles these trees. Given the choice between a straight or a crooked means of making money, they choose the latter. In a way they are admired by their victims, but" only the " sharps ” themselves know what e. ’strenuous, wretched life has fallen to their lot.