The money's his. When I gives a gent a stake, thar's nothin' held
back. I don't go playin' the despot as to how he blows it. If this
yere party I relieves wants whiskey an' is buyin' whiskey, I
approves his play. If I've a weakness at all, it's for seein' folks
fetterless an' free.'

"While holdin' Cherokee's views erroneous, so far as he seeks to
apply 'em to paupers tankin' up on donations, still I allows it's
dealin' faro which has sp'iled him; an' as you can't make no gent
over new, I quits an' don't buck his notions about dispensin'
charity no more. "Thar's times when this yere Cherokee Hall caroms
on a gent who's high-strung that a-way, an' won't take no donations;
which this yere sport may be plenty needy to the p'int of perishin',
too. That's straight; thar's nachers which is that reluctant about
aid, they simply dies standin' before they'll ever ask.

"Once or twice when Cherokee crosses up with one of these yere
sensitif souls, an' who's in distress, he never says a word about
givin' him anythin'; he turns foxy an' caps him into a little poker.
An' in the course of an hour--for he has to go slow an' cunnin', so
he don't arouse the victim to suspicions that he's bein' played--
Cherokee'll disarrange things so he loses a small stake to him. When
he's got this distressed gent's finances reehabilitated some, he
shoves out an' quits.

"'An' you can put it flat down,' remarks Cherokee, who's
sooperstitious, 'I never loses nothin' nor quits behind on these
yere benevolences. Which I oft observes that Providence comes back
of my box before ever the week's out, an' makes good.'