"Well, at any rate young Lonsdale and Turner started the game on the first day out, and kept it going almost until the steamer passed Fire Island. Of course Turner beat him right along. He made no effort to let Lonsdale win from him at first. He simply played poker and raked in the young man’s money and checks. A lot of us aboard knew Turner, and those of us who had met Lonsdale in England got him aside on the second day out and diplomatically put it to him that he was engaged in a pretty difficult encounter—that, in brief, Turner was a professional player of cards. For our pains we were told that we were too confoundedly officious, that he was more than 7 years of age and knew what he was about, and all the rest—you know the talk of a boy; and this boy was flushed, too, you understand.
"At any rate, when the steamer was drawing near this shore Lonsdale decided that he had had enough—not that he would not have gone on playing for another seven days, had the voyage been protracted to that extent, but he had to get ready to land. Several of us were in the card-room when the last hand was played. Turner won the hand and Lonsdale scribbled a check on his American banker for the amount the hand represented. Then he looked up at Turner for a minute and said:
"’Some of my friends here estimate you a little unkindly, Mr. Turner.’
"’How’s that?’ inquired Turner, looking not a whit surprised.
"’Well,’ said Lonsdale, ’they maintain that your skill at cards affords you something better than a livelihood.’
"’I never denied that,’ said Turner coolly.
"’In playing with me on this voyage you have employed skill alone?’
"’At your suggestion, I have played draw poker with you for seven days. I understand draw poker, and I have $12,000 of your money. Do you want it back?’
"You see, that was a magnificent bluff on Turner’s part. The young chap, he knew, would not welch.
"’Oh, if you choose to be insulting’——said Lonsdale, flushing hotly, and he rose from the card-table and left the room.
"Well, a couple of elderly Englishmen aboard who knew Lonsdale and his father before him went to him then and told him that it would be perfectly proper and right for him to stop payment on the checks he had given to Turner, who, they told him in so many words, was nothing short of a swindler.