A Sequel to Don Juan — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DON JUAN. 115 CXV. There is in gaming an infatuation To which men yield as ’twere to the decree Of an unchangeable predestination— A stern irrevocable destiny. Juan could not resist this new temptation :— Oh! why should there occasion ever be For a relapse ? and why does Vice still show Herself in new shapes wheresoe’er we go ? CXVI. Incidit in Scyllam qua vult vitare Charybdem :—such was Juan’s present case ; But still his late experience made him wary— Especially in such a doubtful place ; For from the first it had required no fairy Nor conj’rer to enable him to trace The characters of the suspicious set Whom in the Surrey boarding-house he met. poem. The plan was as follows:—A very thin slip was cut length-ways off all the higk cards of all the suits; and an equally narrow slip was cut width-ways from the low cards. A peculiar acuteness of feeling was obtained by study and continual practise ; and the result was the power of those who possessed the secret to sort the cards in any way they chose. When the Jews arrived at a town, they made an ar- rangement with the keeper of the coffee-house to supply the cards already prepared by them ; and a heavy bribe, or a handsome per-centage upon the proceeds, usually en- sured the co-operation. The two Jews studied and practiced their system for two or three years before they brought it to the required state of perfection, the pleces cut off the cards being so narrow, that it was only by an extraordinary keenness of the touch the distinctions could be perceived. Baron Rosenberg visited England some years ago, obtained introductions to the Clubs and other places of fashionable resort, and succeeded in fleecing the English aristocracy out of a considerable sum of money, The secret of the Jews was known to him :—verbum sat. eomniclbools,.comn