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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN GAMING IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER VI. page 7


`Is Mr Ogden (now the Newmarket oracle) the same person who,
five-and-twenty years since, was an annual pedestrian to Ascot,
covered with dust, amusing himself with "_PRICKING in the_
belt," "_HUSTLING_ in the hat," &c., among the lowest class
of rustics, at the inferior booths of the fair?

'Is D-k-y B--n who now has his snug farm, the same person who,
some years since, _DROVE A POST CHAISE_ for T--y, of Bagshot,
could neither read nor write, and was introduced to _THE FAMILY_
only by his pre-eminence at cribbage?

`Is Mr Twycross (with his phaeton) the same person who some years
since became a bankrupt in Tavistock Street, immediately
commenced the Man of Fashion at Bath, kept running horses, &c.,
_secundum artem?_

`Is Mr Phillips (who has now his town and country house, in the
most fashionable style) the same who was originally a linen-
draper and bankrupt at Salisbury, and who made his first _family
entre_ in the metropolis, by his superiority at _Billiards_
(with Captain Wallace, Orrell, &c.) at Cropley's, in Bow Street?

`Was poor carbuncled P--e (so many years the favourite decoy
duck of _THE FAMILY_) the very barber of Oxford, who, in the
midst of the operation upon a gentleman's face, laid down his
razor, swearing that he would never shave another man so long as
he lived, and immediately became the hero of the card table, the
_bones_, the _box_, and the _Cockpit?_'

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