Of all the contrivances of the art and learning of man there is none more curious nor cards. They have a connection with beings are not right things at all, and it is well known that an Evil Angel can house himself for a while in a new deck of cards.

There was a young lad called Terry the Luck, and he a great warrant for gaining all games of skill and of chance. He was that strongly renowned the roulette men would warn him away from their boards in a fair, and the thimble trick man fled clean from the street when he come; the gosoons were in dread to toss pence with himself for the coin fell head or tail as he called.

Now it happened one night that Terry the [132]Luck was on his way home from the sports, and he carried a new deck of cards in his hand. He was in the best of humour for he was after winning a powerful bet on a race. Part of the gain was snug in his pocket, and the remainder had paid for the drink of his friends and himself.

The road to his home was lonely, for he lived in a backward townland. The river passed within sight of his door, and it spanned by a bridge was four arches long.

When Terry the Luck set his foot on the bridge didn’t he wheel away round and start in the wrong direction.

“That’s a strange thing,” says he. “Sure my legs were right steady till now.”

With that he went at it again, but he couldn’t succeed for to cross. He went back about twenty yards and took a run at it&mda............