Harry Humors the Bunco Steerers [published Dec. 19, 1880]

About five years after I came to New York, a sport­in’ friend of mine wrote to me from California that a game called banco was milkin’ the boys in ’Frisco wild. I heard of banco again about five years after­wards from some sports in New Orleans. Phil Farley, the smart detective, also told me all about it. At last, about ten years ago, I came across a regular banco game here in New York. Why, this game of banco is, as I saw at once, only an old English game revived, with some few alterations, and under an assumed name. It is the old “eight dice cloth” so popular in certain parts of the old country.

They tried to play this banco game on me in New York here, and that was the way I came across it. I don’t think there is much about me that looks like “a sucker,” but, at any rate, the banco sharps took me for one that time.

A man came up to me as I was walkin’ along the Bowery one fine mornin’, and, puttin’ out his hand said, in the most friendly manner, as if he wanted to borrow money of me from the start: “My dear Mr. Thompson, how do you do today?”

I took the fellow in in a moment, as I looked at him. He was “a sharp” of some kind and was playing me for a flat. I was agreeable. I like to keep my hand in by rubbin’ my mind, as it were, against some other fellow’s mind, and seein’ whose mind comes off sec­ond best. So I was as polite as I could be my reply to his salutation. ‘‘I am very well, I thank you,” said I; “never felt better in the whole course of my life; only my name is not Thompson, but Burton,” coinin’ a name on the spur of the moment.

“Burton! Why, how strange!” said the stranger. “You are the very image, the very double, of Mr. Charles Thompson, of Utica. ”

“It is very funny,” said I: “but really I have never seen this person you speak of, and I have never been to Utica in my life. You see, this is my first visit to New York, and I come from Cleveland, Ohio.”

“Ah, indeed!” said the stranger; “how liable we all are to mistakes. I could have sworn just now you were my old friend Thompson. Well, excuse me, Mr. Burton, I will not intrude upon you any longer; pardon my mistake; good mornin’.” And the polite stranger bowed and passed on.

I hadn’t got more than a block farther down the Bowery, and was just standin’ in front of the old Bowery Theatre, when another fellow, whom I had never seen before (and never want to see again), rushed up to me and said: “Why, my dear Burton, how are you?”

For a moment I was puzzled to think why the fellow spoke to me at all, and especially why he called me Burton. Then I remembered that I had just given the last man who had met me the name of Burton, and in a minute I dropped on the little game, as I thought.

These two fellows, the man I had just met and this one here, were confederates and were tryin’the confidence game racket on me. “All right,” thinks I, and I laughed inwardly. But I kept up the delusion as far as my new acquaintance was concerned. “Excuse me,” said I. “you know me, I see, but I really I can not recall your name, though your face I seems familiar.”

“Why, I am an old Cleveland man,” said my new found friend No. 2. “Many a time have I seen you in Cleveland, and once or twice we have had a little chat together in the street. But that was years ago, and I would not have taken the liberty of speakin’ to you now, had not your face brought back to me dear old Cleveland, and I thought I would take the liberty of addressin’ you anyway.”

“You did perfectly right,” said I, graspin’ the fel­low’s hand and wringin’ it heartily, and now that you speak, I believe I really can recall you. Well, I am heartily glad to see you, anyway.”

 Then we shook hands again and again; then he asked me to take a drink, and so on; but he didn’t ask me to lend him any money, nor he didn’t meet a friend who wanted to cash a check, nor he didn’t find any pocket­book, nor his confederate didn’t put in an appearance. So I wondered what his little racket was, and waited till it should be his good pleasure to develop it.

He showed up pretty soon. Among other items of information, my companion told me that he had just met that very mornin’ a Cuban and bought for a dollar a Havana lottery ticket. He also assured me that a friend, whom he had met in the street shortly after wards, just before he met me, in fact, had assured him that that very ticket had drawn a prize.

“Why, that’s first-rate for you, ain’t it ?” says I.

“Well, it’s rather lucky,” says my companion; “but, you see, I don’t know much about these lotteries, and haven’t much faith in ’em. So I want you to go with me to the bankin’ house, where they cash these prizes, and I’ll get the money. Then we’ll have a dinner together and a good time, you know.”

I was just the man for “a good time ” and perfectly willin’ to go with him to the bankin’ house. So off we started.

We reached a place on the Bowery, just near Chatham Square, and my companion and myself went in.

“Do you cash Havana lottery prizes here?” asked my friend of the man behind the counter.

It was quite an elegant place, this “bankin’ house,” and business-like; solid but not showy furniture, sub­stantial chairs, enormous desks, big maps, some mercantile books; everythin’ looked all right.

“Yes, we cash prizes here,” replied the man be­hind the counter.

            “Then I would like you to give me the money for this,” said my friend, drawin’ out a printed slip which looked like a genuine Havana lottery ticket.

The man behind the counter looked at the slip as if it was a bit of nitro-glvcerine or a warrant for his ar­rest. Then he opened a tremendously big account ­book, looked at the slip again, looked at the account book again, and kept on lookin’ first at one and then at the others for two or three minutes.

Then the man behind the counter spoke with any amount of dignity and majesty: “Your ticket entitles you to one-twentieth of the main prize, which is five thousand dollars.”

“Very well,” says my companion, drinkin’ in each word greedily, as if he wanted more of the same sort.

“There is your money, sir,” continued the man behind the counter, with still more majesty and dignity, handin’ my companion a roll of bills—or what looked like bank bills. “There are $200, and here is a ticket for the one dollar that entitles you to take a chance in the special drawin’.”

“What can I get in this special drawin’?” asked my companion.

“You can get any amount from five to five thousand dollars, accordin’ to your fortune,” said the man behind the counter, as majestic as Kaiser Will­iam himself by this time.

“When does this special drawin’ take place?” asked my companion.

“It draws to-morrow,’’ answered the man behind the counter.

“Pshaw,” said my companion, ‘’ I can’t wait till to-morrow. I have to leave town today.”

“Perhaps your friend can hold your ticket for you,” suggested the man behind the counter, “and attend the drawin’ tomorrow.”

“Can’t you possibly let the drawing take place today, at least as far as I am concerned?” interrupted my companion, as if he didn’t particularly fancy the idea of entrustib’ his possible valuable ticket to me, though he had met me in Cleveland, years ago.

“Well, I could manage it for you; that is, if you must leave town to-morrow,” said the man behind the counter, unbendin’ from his majesty.

“I must indeed,” insisted my companion. “Busi­ness of the utmost importance calls me away from New York for some time, and I must start to-night.”

“Well, in such an extreme case as yours, we are willin’ to accommodate,” said the man behind the counter, still more graciously.

“Follow me, gentlemen, and the special drawin’ can take place at once.”

Just to think of it! A special drawin’ of the Havana lottery to take place a day ahead of time, all for the sake of one customer with a one dollar ticket. This was accommodation with a vengeance.

I saw by this time I had stumbled on a new racket—at least, a new racket to me—and I determined to see what it amounted to. So I followed my companion and the man who had stood behind the counter, into a private room, where there was a piano—or what I at first thought was one. But it was only a blind, and when the cover was removed it revealed “a cloth, ” with fourteen blanks on it, twelve occupied by stars, and two numbers, 28 and 36, covered by the word “Banco.” Then there were two sets of dice.

I knew all now. My sportin’ friends in California and New Orleans had given me in their letters the main points about “banco.” I had been “roped” into a banco den, that was all.

The two men—my companion, who had known me in Cleveland years ago, and the man who had been behind the counter and had been so majestic, but who now was as meltin’ as a May moruin’—got in all their fine work. The plan of the drawin’ of the “Havana special” was fully explained to me, or at least to my companion. I was told—or he was told—all about the forty-one numbers, the twelve star numbers, the twenty-six prizes, rangin’ from $2 for one to $5,000 for one, and all the rest. My companion, who had known me in Cleveland years ago, seemed to be specially fortunate, and all that. But somehow Mr. Burton would not bite.

And then, seein’ this, my companion, who had known me in Cleveland, grew less friendly, and the man who had been behind the counter grew more ma­jestic and dignified—like his former self.

The special Havana drawin’ did not take place after all, that day. And just as I left “the bankin’house, ” I turned to the worthy pair who had been tryin’ to play me for a sucker, and told ’em my name was not Bur­ton, and that I had never been to Cleveland in my life, nor had ever met either of ’em before, but that my name was Harry Hill, that I kept a sportin’ house in New York, and that I had heard all about banco.

Then I left the ‘‘bankin’ house.” I didn’t run away, but I walked away fast, for I believed the two sharps, maddened at wastin’ so much time and trouble on me, would have knifed me if they had got a chance.

[Editor’s notes: Bunco (banco, banko, bunko) is a legitimate dice game, but confidence men employed it as a pretense to get their marks to put money up front for a promise of high rewards, requiring one step of investment after another. Harry is correct in that the game derived from “eight dice cloth.” Phil Farley, a New York police detective, wrote one of the first books profiling active professional criminals, Criminals of America, which was used as a source for several Harry Hill’s Gotham columns.]