It was after one of my losing experiences at the gaming-table, and when I was hard pressed for money to meet my immediate wants, that I visited Geneva, for the purpose of selling goods to some of my customers in that place.

At that time I made the acquaintance of a young man by the name of Horace Johnson, who was a practicing dentist of that town.

Like myself, he was a wild and reckless fellow, given to dissipation and drink, and who, like myself, had been able to conceal the fact from his family and their friends.

Johnson's prevailing vice was an uncontrollable passion for gambling, and he had been addicted to this practice for a long time.

I afterward understood that he had acquired this habit while attending a dental college in St.Louis, where he had become quite an expert in the handling of cards, and was well posted in the tricks so frequently resorted to by gamblers to fleece their unsuspecting victims.