"You are younger than my son, and he said that you told him that you had only recently come up to London.

It is astonishing that while experienced players should never have noticed that anything was wrong you should have discovered it." "The explanation is simple, Mr.Cotter.I have no inclination for play myself, but I happened a short time since to fall in with a man who was well acquainted with all the various methods of card sharping.

I thought that a knowledge of that might some day be useful, and I got him to put me up to a number of the tricks of card sharpers both at home and abroad.

Having these fresh in my mind, and seeing that your son was playing with a man whose reputation I knew to be bad, I naturally concentrated my attention upon him, and was not long in discovering that he had a confederate standing behind your son's chair.

Being a stranger in the place, I could not denounce him, but the next night I set two friends to watch that method of cheating, while I kept my eyes fixed on Emerson's hands.