Mark Twain

“ All you've got to do, on your side, is to survey in such a way that the "gores" will fall on good fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle, in rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular, right along, and--'
I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be helped. ”

“ Backus's melancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his late mistake.
'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what WOULD they say to it in OHIO. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handled like that?--wouldn't they, though?'
All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved away, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another of them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation continued between the four men; it grew earnest ”

“ Well--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's 'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an understanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four queens, but alas, he didn't.
A week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height of fashion--in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--
'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a week's apprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. ”