Wintersmith's Royal Flush

1895

A Lamented Kentuckian's Wild Romance of the Poker Table.

A company of gentlemen assembled in an up town hotel fell to relating poker stories, and several of rare excellence, even if not of the latest vintage, were recounted.

"The late Jim Wintersmith," said one of the party, "unwittingly told the very best poker yarn I ever listened to. He was the hero of his own story and laid the scene at Hot Springs, Ark. According to Mr. Wintersmith, he had experienced extremely bad luck in a series of plays and made up his mind to try one more sitting, after which, if he failed to recoup, he would never more touch a card. Likewise if he won out enough to get even he would cease the fascinating pastime.

"He weighed in, so to speak, and there was a good big jack pot opened while the game was still young. Wintersmith observed that his own hand contained a straight flush of the kind dubbed royal, as it ran from the ten spot up to the ace. He raised, of course, both before and after the draw, only one man staying with him to the end and having the pluck to call him. Of course he won a tremendous sum of money. He vowed that since that day he had never had the slightest inclination to sit in a game of poker.

"When Mr. Wintersmith had ended his story here, one of the group to whom he was narrating it innocently inquired, `What did the other fellow hold?'

" 'Four jacks,' replied Wintersmith. Then everybody broke into a laugh, and the gentleman from Kentucky had to own up that he had indulged in romance." — Washington Post.