his appearance in the room, as a signal of commencing their
covert attacks. The shrug, the nod, the hem--every motion of the
eyes, hands, feet--every air and gesture, look and word--became
an expressive, though disguised, language of fraud and cozenage,
big with deceit and swollen with ruin. Besides this, the card
was marked, or 'slipped,' or COVERED. The story is told of a
noted sharper of distinction, a foreigner, whose hand was thrust
through with a fork by his adversary, Captain Roche, and thus
nailed to the table, with this cool expression of concern-- 'I
ask your pardon, sir, if you have not the knave of clubs under
your hand.' The cards were packed, or cut, or even SWALLOWED. A
card has been eaten between two slices of bread and butter, for
the purpose of concealment.

With wily craft the sharpers substituted their deceitful
'doctors' or false dice; and thus 'crabs,' or 'a losing game,'
became the portion of the 'flats,' or dupes.

There were different ways of throwing dice. There was the
'Stamp'--when the caster with an elastic spring of the wrist
rapped the cornet or box with vehemence on the table, the dice as
yet not appearing from under the box. The 'Dribble' was, when
with an air of easy but ingenious motion, the caster poured, as
it were, the dice on the board--when, if he happened to be an old
practitioner, he might suddenly cog with his fore-finger one of
the cubes. The 'Long Gallery' was when the dice were flung or
hurled the whole length of the board. Sometimes the dice were
thrown off the table, near a confederate, who, in picking them
up, changed one of the fair for a false die with two sixes. This
was generally done at the first throw, and at the last, when the