going on in the house but card-playing; the almoner played with me, and so did the sub-rector, and I won money from both; not too much, however, lest they should tell the rector, who had the character of a very austere man, and of being a bit of a saint; however, the thief of a porter, whose money I had won, informed the rector of what was going on, and one day the rector sent for me into his private apartment, and gave me so long and pious a lecture upon the heinous sin of card-playing, that I thought I should sink into the ground; after about half-an-hour’s inveighing against card-playing, he began to soften his tone, and with a long sigh told me that at one time of his life he had been a young man himself, and had occasionally used the cards; he then began to ask me some questions about card-playing, which questions I afterwards found were to pump from me what I knew about the science.  After a time he asked me whether I had got my cards with me, and on my telling him I had, he expressed a wish to see them, whereupon I took the pack out of my pocket, and showed it to him; he looked at it very attentively, and at last, giving another deep sigh, he said, that though he was nearly weaned from the vanities of the world, he had still an inclination to see whether he had entirely lost the little skill which at one time he possessed.  When I heard him speak in this manner, I told him that if his reverence was inclined for a game of cards, I should be very happy to play one with him; scarcely had I uttered these words than he gave a third sigh, and looked so very much like a saint that I was afraid he was going to excommunicate me.  Nothing of the kind, however, for presently he gets up and locks the door, then sitting down at the table, he motioned me to do the same, which I did, and in five minutes we were playing at cards, his reverence and myself.

“I soon found that his reverence knew quite as much about card-playing as I did.  Divil a trick was there connected with cards that his reverence did not seem awake to.  As, however, we were not playing for money, this circumstance did not give me much uneasiness; so we played game after game for two hours, when his reverence, having business, told me I might go, so I took up my cards, make my obedience, and left him.  The next day I had other games with him, and so on for a very long time, still playing for nothing.  At last his reverence grew tired of playing for nothing, and proposed that we should play for money.  Now, I had no desire to play with his reverence for money, as I knew that doing so would bring on a quarrel.  As long as we were playing for nothing, I could afford to let his reverence use what tricks he pleased; but if we played for money, I couldn’t do so.  If he played his tricks, I must play mine, and use every advantage to save my money; and there was one I possessed which his reverence did not.  The cards being my own, I had put some delicate little marks on the trump cards, just at