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 called 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 anchor on which most of the money was.      

            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.

            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, Bally, 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,” Bally said.

            “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 Charlton 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.
          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.