Word: thimblerigging
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...heroine of this cheerful thimblerig of a novel is an eleven-year-old orphan whose mother was "the wildest girl in Marengo County, Alabama." More practical than Mama, Addie Pray takes up traveling with Long Boy Pray, one of several men who might be her father, in order to help him "do business"-meaning back-country bunco jobs...
...push America westward, his flamboyant character that gave luster to frontier individualism, and his legerdemain and quick gun that often forced the coming of law and order. Gambling has also produced some of the most colorful characters in American history. There was Dr. Bennett, a riverboat gambler who invented thimblerig (which one has the pea?) and could still outwit the best of them at 70; Elijah Skagg, who became a millionaire by training youths in his shady science and sending them across the country in teams. There was Madame Mustache of Nevada City, Calif., who ran a square game with...
...Thimblerig = the Shell Game, with three thimble-like cups, a pea, a sleight-of-hand, a gullible bettor...
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