Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/75

Rh danger they run, I will play any one of them tomorrow, and beat him.

Draughts are more generally in use: and they are in like manner followed with enthusiasm by the votaries of Mercury, that president of purloining, among the ancients. So intense are the players at this stupid game, that you may see a couple of decent men, who deserve a better occupation, bestowing the utmost extension of their faculties upon the upshot of a game that deserves, nor shall receive from me other than the bitterest execration, because it is the grave of thought, the extinguisher of every generous sense. Do men meet together to shut their minds up upon a move of timber? and then, when the game is over, start up as if awaked out of a sleep to join in the jovialities of the evening? After "pushing about the wooden gods," as Johnny Bee used to call them, can they descend to converse with us mortals? No!

But they are not less the means of taking money (or money in the shape of drink) out of your pockets. It is the common practice to let you in, if you intermeddle, or give your advice (for novices can see a move which the experienced player cannot). Verbum sat. Should you bet or play, you are done.