Find the Queen It came with a small table and folding chair, sat down and rested his hat the floor, then provided three old playing cards on the table and rested beside a bribe of fifty thousand lire banknotes.
find the queen, began to speak softly in a barely audible whisper, find the queen.
If you could find it, you win a thousand pounds.
The curious thing is that turning the cards so incredibly slow, trembling hands moved so awkward and uncertain, no one could ever go wrong, and, in fact, guessed all. Always.
After finishing the stack of bills, slipped into the worn three cards in his pocket, folded up the table and chair, putting on his hat and went away, except to return the next day and repeat the same scene.
find the queen, he said, and slowly decreased to its notes in a soft voice grew excited tone. When the last thousand pounds had been lost, smiling, sighing and walked away. I do not ever
I played, I seemed to do something dirty, as to rob him, but I often went to watch them play almost every day if I could, because all it lasted about twenty minutes, rarely more.
If someone tried to get back in line when he had already played, he would notice it and refused to continue the rule was this: you can only play once a day, there was no problem to return the next day. So every day, people lined up before coming, now the rumor had spread throughout the country, had become famous the old fool who gave a thousand pounds.
In all the times I went to look that old, I never saw him win and the only words I heard him say were: Find the queen, the queen found.
One day simply did not show up and you never saw.
never found out who he was or not because he persisted in losing that game forever. Only once, while collecting for shoving the hat, I saw inserted into the seam inside an old yellowing photograph, I could not see well what it represented, but I saw the silhouettes of a woman and a child.
