The man is now waiting in the next room, and if you will take two or three hours daily with him, say for a week, you ought to be able to detect the doings of these fellows when to others everything seems right and above board.

You may have no inclination for cards, but knowledge of that sort is useful to anyone in society, here or anywhere else, and may enable him either to save his own pocket or to do a service to a friend." Mark was greatly interested in the tricks the man showed him.

At first it seemed to him almost magical, after he himself had shuffled the cards and cut them the dealer invariably turned up a king.

Even admitting he might have various places of concealment, pockets in the lining of the sleeve, in the inside of the coat, and in various other parts of the dress, in which cards could be concealed and drawn out by silken threads, it did not seem possible that this could be done with such quickness as to be unobserved.

It was only when his teacher showed him, at first in the slowest manner, and then gradually increasing his speed, that he perceived that what seemed impossible was easy enough when the necessary practice and skill had been attained.