suspicion.

Two gambling adventurers would set out with a certain number of
signs and signals. The use of the handkerchief during the game
was the certain evidence of a good hand. The use of the snuff-
box a sign equally indicative of a bad one. An affected cough,
apparently as a natural one, once, twice, three, or four times
repeated, was an assurance of so many honours in hand. Rubbing
the left eye was an invitation to lead trumps,--the right eye the
reverse,--the cards thrown down with one finger and the thumb was
a sign of one trump; two fingers and the thumb, two trumps, and
so on progressively, and in exact explanation of the whole hand,
with a variety of manoeuvres by which chance was reduced to
certainty, and certainty followed by ruin.[6]

[6] Bon Ton Magazine, 1791.


CHEATING AT WHIST.

In an old work on cards the following curious disclosures are
made respecting cheating at whist:--

'He that can by craft overlook his adversary's game hath a great
advantage; for by that means he may partly know what to play
securely; or if he can have some petty glimpse of his partner's
hand. There is a way by making some sign by the fingers, to
discover to their partners what honours they have, or by the wink
of one eye it signifies one honour, shutting both eyes two,
placing three fingers or four on the table, three or four