Romances of the Card Table.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 16, 21 April 1909, Page 54

Romances of the Card Table.

A STORY OF LOUIS XV. THE K.INU OF PRUSSIA IN DISGUISE. AS A WINNER. If the fit!! story of the card-table could <>•• written, it would surely be the most startling revelation of human cupidity ever published; and almost every page of it would be marked by some incident which would outstrip fiction, says'? “TitHits.” \Vh< n Ixmis XV. was at the card tab!? the fascination of the game made him absolutely dead to all externals, and even to decency and humanity. On one decision, when he was p’aying for heavy Flakes, one of his opponents, overcome by excitement, collapsed in his chair in a lit of apoplexy, liis M ij«‘stv affected to ignore the incident until someone ex<’aimed, “M.de < hanvelin is ill’” “Hi?’ retorted the King, easting a careless glance at the stiicken man; ” h • is dead. Take him away; spades are trumps, gentlemen!” Ixpially weird is a story (loklsmitli tells. When the clergyman arrived to prepare a lady parishioner, who had a passion for gambling, for her approaching death, the lady, after listening for a short time to his exhortations, exclaimed, ‘That's enough! Now let us have a game'of cards.” To humour her the parbon consented to play. The dying woman won all his money, and had suggested playing for her funeral fee when the fell hack ami expired.

hi the early days of last century a whist club, composed largely of clergymen, lilted to meet in tin* back room of a il>arb<*r’s shop in a Somersetshire town. On one occasion, so the story runs, when lour of the club members wore acting as pallbearers at the funeral of a reverend, brother, some delay occurred, and the coffin was set down in the chancel. One <»f them produced a pack of cards and Fiiggestod a rubber. The coffin served the purpose of a thble, and the players were deeply immersed in the game when the Sexton arrived to announce that everything was at last ready. Mazarin’s pas-ion for gambling was so fetiong even in death that he played cards to the very end, when he was so weak that they had to lie held for him; and the “ Merry Monarch” spent his last jSunday on earth playing at basset round 0 large table with his great courtiers and other dissolute persons, ami with a hank of at least £2OOO before ‘him.

The curious fascination cards possess tor their devotees is illustrated by the following story of Lord Granville, at the time our ambassador to Era nee. One after-

noon when he was about to return to Paris, he repaired to Graham’s to have a farewell game of whist, ordering his carriage to be at the door at 4. When it arrived hie was much tod deep in the game to be disturbed. At ten o’clock he ‘sent, to say that he was not ready, and that the horses had better he changed. Six hours later the same message v.as sent out, and twice more the waiting horses were changed before he consented t<» leave tile table after losing £lO,OOO. An equally remarkable story is told of George Payne, the great turf plunger ot seventy years ago. On one occasion he sat down at Limmer’s Hotel, to play cards with Lord Albert Denison, later the first Lord Londesborough. Hour after hour passed: the game proceeded all through the- night and long after day dawned, and it was not until an urgent message came to tell Lord Albert that his bride was waiting for, him at the altar of St. George s, Hanover Square, that the cards were at last flung down. It was Lord Albert’s wedding day, and ho met his bride £30.000 poorer than when he left her on the previous day. One of the most romantic of gambling stories is told by Air. Thiselton-Dyer. of a plainly dressed stranger who once took his seatjat a faro-table, and after an ext raordinary run of luck succeeded in break ing the bank. ‘ Heavens!” exclaimed an old, infirm Austrian officer who had sat next to the stranger, “the twentieth part of your gains would make me the happiest man in the world!” “ You shall have it, then,” answered the stranger, as he left the room. A servant speedily returned and presented the officer with the twentieth part of the bank, adding, “ My master, sir* requires no answer.” The successful stranger was soon discovered to be no other than the King of Prussia in disguise. That all gamblers are not ungenerous is proved by the following story told by Horace Walpole is one of his letters. Air. O’Birne, an Irish gamester, bad won £lOO,OOO from young Mr. Harvey, of < higwell, just started from a midshipman into an estate by his eldest brother’s death. O’Birne said, “ You can never pay •me.” “ 1 can.” said the youth. “My estate will sell for the debt.” ” No," said O’Birne, “ 1 will win ten thousand, and you shall throw , for the odd ninety thousand.” They did, and Harvey won. The most costly game of cards on record was probably that in which the late George McCulloch, chairman of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, took pirt. A syndicate of seven had been formed to finance the famous Broken Hill silver mine and Mr. McCulloch was one of the seven. One day, while sitting in a shanty at the

foot of the hdl. McCulloch offered a fourteenth share in the mine to a young man named lox for £2OO. Cox would only offer £l2O, and after much haggling it was decided to settle the dispute by a game of euchre. If Cox

proved the winner to wns to have the share for Cl 20; if lie Jost lie was to pay £ 180 for it. He won, and for the absurd sum of £l2O became owner of the share which a few-years later was valued at £ 1,250,000.