Not a Ghost Story

by Judge Clark

George Marley having none but fashionable vices, was not what the world calls vicious. He drank without being a sot, gambled without being a blackleg, and if not a saint, was no profligate.

He had recently come into a handsome fortune, and was spending his first winter, and a good deal of money, in New Orleans. Among others whose acquaintance he formed, was a young Frenchman, a few years his senior, named Antione Giraud, between whom and himself a similarity of tastes soon caused an especial intimacy to spring up.

Young Giraud was perfectly acquainted with the city and its ways, and was nothing loth to place his knowledge at his friend’s disposal. When the theatre and opera grew tiresome, as they did at last, and masked balls and wine suppers began to lose their zest, fresh excitement was sought and found in those temples where the fickle goddess nightly distributes her “buffets and rewards” without troubling herself whether or not they are received “with equal thanks.”

Giraud played persistently against his friend. Marley thought it was because they were friends. There was another reason, perhaps. However, if money was the Frenchman’s object, he was signally disappointed, for he was uniformly unsuccessful. Though evidently chagrined at his losses he seemed to bear them with equanimity, returning each night to the encounter, led by the blind hope that has lured so many to destruction, that luck, at last, must change.

One night their play ran unusually high. Marley was flushed with wine, while the expression of his companion’s face betokened a still deeper excitement. With a nervously trembling hand, the latter deposited on the table a sum larger than any he had yet risked. It was promptly covered by his adversary.

“This time I have won!” cried Giraud eagerly, throwing down his cards… Read More