In some places he was known under
one character, and in others under a very different guise. He had laid
out all this piping for as many different emergencies. Having become a
detective, he made the methods of his profession an exact science. Oscar
had not been long in the gambling den when his original suspicions were
all fully confirmed. The two men who had shadowed him to the club
entered, and our hero mentally argued:
"Those fellows certainly stick to my identity."
The detective engaged in the game. He was not a gambler--he abhorred
gambling. He had seen so many men drop down to poverty who had taken
their first step back in a gambling den, and during the course of his
career he had warned, and in some instances saved young clerks who were
just beginning to slide downward. Gambling is a fatal amusement and
sooner or later leads to disaster. Oscar, however, knew how to gamble.
He had learned the various games merely as aids in his profession, for
most criminals are inveterate gamblers, and it is in gambling dens where
detectives find their richest fields for "dead shadows."
A few moments after Oscar had gotten into the game one of the men who
were shadowing him also got in. It proved to be a very commonplace play.
No large bets were made, no great sums were lost or won.
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