True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young. Page: 155
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HOUSTON AND HOUSTONIANS 155
of the room. The crowd had been so taken by surprise that not
a word had been spoken. As the robber was just going down
the steps a little fellow who was sitting at the end of the table
said:
"It's a good thing I did not have my gun with me."
The retiring robber took a step back into the room and, covering
the little fellow with his pistol, asked him what he would
have done if he had had his gun.
"Why, I would have lost that, too, as well as my watch," was
the reply.
Now, the strange part about this performance was the fact
that neither of the robbers made the least attempt to disguise
himself. No one had ever seen either of them before nor has
anyone ever seen either of them since.
They simply came, conquered and disappeared. Probably
they were the only men who ever beat that faro game.
Now of all of the superstitious people on earth, gamblers are
the worst. Anything strange or unusual will get on their nerves
and unfit them for any and everything. One night I saw a
splendid Illustration of this. Dick Fuller and I were going fishing
and had gotten up about 3 o'clock to make an early start. We
were near Gregory's corner and noticed that it was brilliantly
lighted, so we judged that there was a good game going on.
"I'll bet I can break that game up," said Dick, "and I will not
go in the building either."
There had been a man killed near there a day or two before
Dick told me to hide behind the corner and watch him break
it up. Then he took a seat on a big dry goods box near the
corner and commenced pounding it with his heels, at the same
time crying out, in a hoarse voice, "Woah, you scoundrel! Woah!
you scoundrel!" Blang! Blang! he would hit the box and then
utter that cry of distress. In a moment it sounded like a drove
of mules coming down the steps and a whole gang of anxious
players were on the sidewalk trying to see what the trouble was.
They rushed up to Dick and asked what was the cause of all
that racket. He pretended not to know what they were talking
about and declared he had been sitting there for some time
and had heard nothing. After looking around carefully they
went upstairs again. In a little while Dick began the same performance
and down they came with a rush. They found no horse
kicking a buggy or wagon into kindling wood, nor could they
see any horse at all. Dick expressed surprise at. their action
and declared that he had neither seen nor heard any horse or
anything else cutting up as described.
They hesitated some time and one or two decided not to go
upstairs again and in a few minutes all came down and went
home, no doubt convinced that they had had an experience with
a ghost.
Whenever I speak of gamblers and their ways I think of my
friend "Frenchy." He was a gambler right aid was never guilty
of speaking of anything in the past tense which, as everybody
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Young, Samuel Oliver. True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young., book, 1913; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth24646/m1/155/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .