The Cheating Gamblers

The Cheating Gamblers

by

Austin Mitchell

     
  Charlton was gambling with a group of youths. They were playing
crown and anchor. Charlton is a forty five year old man and is a professional
gambler. Sometimes he is a three card dealer, other times he is a crown and
anchor dealer.

      
On this particular Saturday night they were gambling on the outskirts of
Keswick. Charlton is a man from Norris, who is banned from entering Keswick.
The men he was gambling with are all from Keswick. He was banned because he
rode away from a game owing a man and a woman, money. He has not
returned to pay up his debts despite several warnings.

           
Charlton had thrown the dice and rolled them in his cup and put the cup back on
the table. He invited the men to put down their bets. The men started to put down
their bets when a man named Boyd cried out.

           
“My money dropped under the table.”

           
“You can’t see it, youth man?” Charlton asked.

           
“In this darkness, lend me your bottle torch.”

           
Charlton took the bottle torch to look for Boyd’s money.

           
The bottle torch went out as Charlton took it off the table. He stuck a match
and re-lit it.

       
They found the money and Boyd put it on diamond on which there was a
substantial amount of money.The rest of the money was on crown.      

           
Charlton’s eyes lit up when he saw the amount of money on the board. His bank
did not have a limit. If he ended up owing them money they would just have to
wait until he could pay them.

           
“Put down some more money, young youths. Don’t tell me that you’re afraid.”

           
A man called Wallman, was the only one who put some more money on the board. He
put it on anchor.

           
Charlton at last raised up his cup. The youths stared in disbelief as only
Wallman was winning money. Charlton started to gather up the money into his
bag.               

   
       When he finished, he began shaking his dice in the
cup and threw the cup down on the board and invited the youths to gamble again.
Nobody took up his offer except Wallman, Charlton laughed.

           
“I just start gamble and the youths finish already. Go back home for some more
money and come and play. I am not leaving here until midnight.”

           
But none of the youths took up his offer. By nine o’clock after cleaning out
Wallman, Charlton decided to go to another community. He rode away on his bike.

     
      The youths returned to Keswick and were
talking to a man by the name of Garth. There were four of them there, Barry,
Boyd, Winston and Eastman.

           
“So what really happened?” Garth asked. He was one of the leaders in Keswick
and had already chided the youths for what he heard had happened to them.

           
“We came up with an idea to trick Charlton. When Boyd dropped his money under
the table, Charlton took the bottle torch to look for it. We lifted up the cup,
saw what he was going to play and loaded our money on those sets,” Barry told
them.

           
“We had to look for the money too, so that he wouldn’t get suspicious. The
bottle torch went out before we found Boyd’s money,” Eastman related to Garth.

           
“We were all surprised when he lifted up the cup,” Boyd stated.

           
“He switched the dice on you. Charlton travels with two sets of dice. When the
bottle torch went out, that’s when he switched the dice on you,” Garth told
them.

           
All four youths thought over what Garth had just said. They were stone broke. They
were so shocked at what Charlton had done, that they hadn’t bothered asking him
back for money to buy a drink.

           
All four youths departed for their homes. They had planned to go to a party.
The extra money that they had been planning to win from Charlton would have
allowed them to buy food and drinks for themselves and their friends.

           
They decided to try after Charlton one more time. This time they succeeded, but
it was just a fraction of what they had lost that they won back. Charlton had
realized the trick from the first time they had tried it. He was willing to let
them get away with this small amount plus he had only one set of dice on him.
He would catch them again.

           
Three months later the youths tried it again, but this time Charlton lifted up
his cup and continued playing.

           
“Youth man, every time you come here your money drop out of your hand. Use your
lighter and look for it.”

           
After that the youths realized that he was on to them. They thought of ways of
getting back the money he had won from them, but couldn't come up with any.
They thought of covering their faces with masks and holding him up, but Charlton
always traveled with a long knife and was known to be deadly with it. One late
night on his way home from a dance, a year ago, two guys had tried to intercept
his bike. Charlton had slashed up both of them, forcing them to flee.

         
Meanwhile Charlton had used his big winnings to pay off the money he owed to
the man and woman from Keswick.

           
However, the men from Keswick told him that they would only let him operate
there under certain conditions. His bank had to have a limit and he could only
use one set of dice. The four youths were also banned from gambling with him.
The End.

 Austin's blog: stredwick.blogspot.com