Str. 'Very exactly and punctually.'

Abp. 'Indeed! Pray, how stands your game now?'
Str. 'There! I have just lost!'

Abp. 'How much have you lost?'
Str. 'Fifty guineas.'

Abp. 'How do you manage to pay it? Does God take your money?'
Str. 'No! The poor are his treasurers. He always sends some

worthy person to receive it, and you are at present his
purse-bearer.'

Saying this, the stranger put fifty guineas into his Grace's
hand, and retired, adding--'I shall play no more to-day.'

The prelate was delighted; though he could not tell what to make
of this extraordinary man. The guineas were all good; and the

archbishopapplied them to the use of the poor, as he had been
directed.

The archbishop, on his return, stopped at the same town, and
could not help going in search of the chess-player, whom he found

engaged as before, when the following dialogue ensued:--
Abp. 'How has the chance stood since we met before?'

Str. 'Sometimes for me--sometimes against me. I have lost and
won.'

Abp. 'Are you at play now?'
Str. 'Yes, sir. We have played several games to-day.'

Abp. 'Who wins?'
Str. 'The advantage is on my side. The game is just over. I

have a fine stroke--check-mate-- there it is.'
Abp. 'How much have you won?'

Str. 'Five hundred guineas.'
Abp. 'That is a large sum. How are you to he paid?'

Str. 'God always sends some good rich man when I win, and YOU
are the person. He is remarkablypunctual on these occasions.'

The archbishop had received a considerable sum on that day, as
the stranger knew; and so, producing a pistol by way of receipt,

he compelled the delivery of it. His Grace now discovered that
he had been the dupe of a thief; and though he had greatly

bruited his first adventure, he prudently kept his own counsel in
regard to the last.

Such is the tale. Se non e vero e ben trovato.
SKITTLE SHARPERS.

'I know a respectabletradesman,' says a writer in Cassell's
Magazine--'I know him now, for he lives in the house he occupied

at the time of my tale--who was sent for to see a French
gentleman at a tavern, on business connected with the removal of

this gentleman's property from one of the London docks. The
business, as explained by the messenger, promising to be

profitable, he of course promptly obeyed the summons, and during
his walk found that his conductor had once been in service in

France. This delighted Mr Chase--the name by which I signify the
tradesman--for he, too, had once so lived in France; and by the

time he reached the tavern he had talked himself into a very good
opinion of his new patron. The French gentleman was very urbane,

gave Mr Chase his instructions, let him understand expense was
not to be studied, and, as he was at lunch, would not be

satisfied unless the tradesman sat down with him. This was a
great honour for the latter, as he found his employer was a

baron. Well, the foreigner was disposed to praise everything
English; he was glad he had come to live in London--Paris was

nothing to it; they had nothing in France like the English beer,
with which, in the exuberance of his hospitality, he filled and

refilled Mr Chase's glass; but that which delighted him above all
that he had seen "vos de leetle game vid de ball--vot you call--

de--de--aha! de skittel." Mr Chase assented that it was a very
nice game certainly; and the French gentleman seeming by this

time to have had quite enough beer, insisted, before they went to
the docks--which was essential--that they should see just one

game played.
'As he insisted on paying Mr Chase for all the time consumed with

him, and as his servant, of course, could not object, the party
adjourned to the "Select Subscription Ground" at once. In the

ground there was a quiet, insignificant-looking little man,
smoking a cigar; and as they were so few, he was asked to assist,

which, after considerablehesitation and many apologies for his
bad play, he did. The end is of course guessed. The French

gentleman was a foolish victim, with more money than wits, who
backed himself to do almost impossible feats, when it was evident

he could not play at all, and laid sovereigns against the best
player, who was the little stranger, doing the easiest. What

with the excitement, and what with the beer, which was probably
spiced with some unknown relish a little stronger than nutmeg, Mr

Chase could not help joining in winning the foreign gentleman's
money; it seemed no harm, he had so much of it.

'By a strange concurrence of events, it so happened that by
random throws the Frenchman sometimes knocked all the pins down

at a single swoop, though he clearly could not play--Mr Chase was
sure of that--while the skilful player made every now and then

one of the blunders to which the best players are liable. That
the tradesman lost forty sovereigns will be easily understood;

and did his tale end here it would have differed so little from a
hundred others as scarcely to deserve telling; but it will

surprise many, as it did me, to learn that he then walked to and
from his own house--a distance of precisely a mile each

way--fetched a bill for thirty pounds, which a customer had
recently paid him, got it discounted, went back to the skittle-

ground, and, under the same malignant star, lost the whole.
'It was the only case in my experience of the work going on

smoothly after such a break. I never could account for it, nor
could Mr Chase. Great was the latter's disgust, on setting the

police to work, to find that the French nobleman, his servant,
and the quiet stranger, were all dwellers within half a mile or

so of his own house, and slightly known to him--men who had
trusted, and very successfully, to great audacity and well-

arranged disguise.'
A vast deal of gambling still goes on with skittles all over the

country. At a place not ten miles from London, I am told that as
much as two thousand pounds has been seen upon the table in a

single 'alley,' or place of play. The bets were, accordingly,
very high. The instances revealed by exposure at the police-

courts give but a faint idea of the extent of skittle sharping.
Amidst such abuses of the game, it can scarcely surprise us that

the police have been recently directed to prohibit all playing at
skittles and bowls. However much we may regret the interference

with popular pastimes, in themselves unobjectionable, it is
evident that their flagrant abuse warrants the most stringent

measures in order to prevent their constantly" target="_blank" title="ad.经常地；不断地">constantlyrepeated and dismal
consequences. Even where money was not played for, pots of beer

were the wager--leading, in many instances, to intoxication, or
promoting this habit, which is the cause of so much misery among

the lower orders.
CHAPTER II.

PROFESSIONAL GAMESTERS AND THEIR FRAUDS.
A gambling house at the end of the last century was conducted by

the following officials:--
1. A Commissioner,--who was always a proprietor; who looked in

of a night, and audited the week's account with two other
proprietors.

2. A Director,--who superintended the room.
3. An Operator,--who dealt the cards at the cheating game called

Faro.
4. Two Croupiers, or crow-pees, as they were vulgarly called,