"Yes, I've heard a good many people say it. Well, you understand your
business. Say, can you do me a favor? I need ten dollars till tomorrow
morning, and if you'll let me have it, I'll--"
The man shut him off with the shake of the head. "I haven't got ten
cents," he said.
Bodney stepped out. "Come in again," the fellow called after him. He
did not reply, except in a mumble, to hurl imprecations back over his
shoulder at the soda-water man. "He's a liar, and I'll bet he's a
thief. Now what?" he added, halting on the corner. He looked up and
down the street, and scanned the faces of the passers-by, hoping to
recognize an acquaintance. Presently a man rushed up and with a
"helloa, old fellow," grasped him by the hand. Bodney gripped him; he
did not recall his name, but he held him close. "I haven't seen you for
some time," said Bodney.
"No, not since we were out on Lake Geneva, fishing for cisco."
"That's a fact. Say, everybody has closed up, and I need ten dollars
till tomorrow morning. Can you--"
"I was just going to ask you for five," said the cisco fisherman. "I
went over here at three sixty-one, and got into a little game of poker
and got busted. Ever over there? Now, there's a good game, only two
dollars limit, but it's liberal. There ain't a tight wad in the house.
Come up some time."
Bodney got on a car to go home. He had just five cents. The talking of
two women and the frolicking of a party of young fellows annoyed him.
And then arose before him the sorrowful face of his sister. The rat had
come back with his teeth sharpened, and he felt his heart bleeding. He
fancied that he could hear the dripping of the blood. Then came upon him
the resolve never to play another game of poker. It was a sure road to
ruin, to despair. He would confess to Howard and the Judge. The car
stopped and Bradley, the preacher, got on, sitting down opposite Bodney,
who, upon recognizing him, arose and warmly shook his hand. "I am
delighted to see you, Mr. Bradley. You are out thus late for the good of
humanity, I suppose, or rather I know."
"I can only hope so," replied the preacher.
"Some sort of meeting of preachers for the advancement of morals, Mr.
Bradley?"
"No, a dinner."
"Well, a good dinner contributes to good morals."
"If not over-indulged in."
"Yes, if there is a virtuous lack of wine, such as must have been the
case tonight." He continued to stand, holding a strap, and meditating
upon future procedure, for there was a purpose in the cordiality with
which he had greeted the minister, a purpose now fully developed. "By
the way, I must come down again tonight--am going home to get some
money. Late this evening I received a note, telling me that a friend of
mine, a divinity student, was exceedingly ill. I hastened to the number
given and found him in a poverty-stricken room, lying upon a wretched
bed, without a nurse, almost delirious with suffering. I knew that he
was poor, that he had bent his energies to study to the neglect of
material things, but I had not expected to find him in so deplorable a
condition. So I am now on my way home to get ten dollars. I went to
several places, hoping that I could borrow, but failed to find any one
whom I knew well enough to ask for a loan, even for so short a time as
tomorrow. But perhaps you could let me have it."
"Why, I'll go with you--at once. What is the young man's name?"
"Patterson. But he's so peculiar that he might not like to see a
stranger. He begged me not to say anything about his condition."
Bradley gave him ten dollars, and he did not wait to reach the next
street crossing, but jumped off the car, sprang upon a cable train going
north, and was soon climbing the stairs leading to the Wexton Club. The
same negro admitted him, and again he was afraid that the game might
have dissolved, merely to cheat him of victorious reprisal, but it was
still in progress, with one vacant seat. This time he invested his
entire amount. The feeling of security, inspired by a reserve fund,
favored an over-confidence, he fancied; it was better to know that there
was nothing in reserve; it enforced caution. He played with varying luck
till about twelve o'clock, till a regular smote him, hip and thigh; and
then, like the captain, in the version of the poem, not recited to
ladies, he staggered down the stairs.
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*SAW THE BLACK FACE, GRIM, WITHOUT A SMILE.*
It was nearly daylight when Bodney reached home. As he stood on the
steps, after unlocking the door, he looked toward the east and said
aloud: "The sun will soon draw to his flush. But he always makes it.
God, what a night I've had. It is the last one, for here at the
threshold of a new day I swear that I will never touch another card.
And Goyle--I'll have nothing more to do with him." He went in, still
repeating his vow, and as he passed the door of the office, was
surprised to see a light within; and halting, he heard footsteps slowly
pacing up and down. He stepped in and stood face to face with the
Judge.
"Why, Judge, are you up so soon, or haven't you gone to bed?"
"I haven't been to bed. And you?"
"I have been sitting up with a sick friend. Don't you think you'd
better lie down now?"
"No, I think nothing of the sort. It is better to stand in hell, sir,
than to wallow in it." Bodney sat down and the old man stood facing
him. "But I can hardly realize that it was not a nightmare, George. Go
over it with me; tell me about it. How did it happen?"
"Why, we simply came in here together and found--him. That's all."
"Yes, that's all, but it is enough."
"Was there very much money involved?" Bodney asked, not knowing what
else to say.
"Money! I haven't once thought of the amount. It is the fact that I
have been shot with an arrow taken from my own quiver, and poisoned.
And yet, when I look at him, as I did today at dinner, I can hardly
bring myself to believe my own eyes."
"You haven't--haven't said anything to him, have you?"
"In the way of accusation? No. It would leap from him to his mother.
And I charge you to breathe it to no one."
"Not even my sister, who is to be his wife?"
"No. I will take her case in hand."
"But will you permit them to marry?"
"Not in a house of God; not in the presence of a guest. If she is
determined to marry him against my protest, it must be in secret, as his
deed was."
"I hope, sir, that everything may--may come out right."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, I hope that you may forgive him. I don't think that he's
dishonest at heart."
"Then you are a fool."
"I admit that, Judge. I am a fool, an infamous fool."
"But you are not a scoundrel, not a thief."
"I might be worse."
"Enough of that. You are trying to debase yourself to raise him. Don't
do it. You can't afford it. You have an honest living to make, and
through you I must now look to the future." He turned away, and for a
time walked up and down in silence; then, coming back, resumed his place
in front of Bodney. "It all comes from my over-confidence in modern
civilization. I did not presume to instruct or even advise him as to a
course of reading, permitting him to exercise his own fancy; and it led
him to that running sore on the face of the earth--Paris. He read
French books, the germs thrown off by diseased minds. He lived in a
literary pest house, and how could he come out clean? He was prepared
for any enormity against nature, and why then should he have drawn the
line between me and any of his desires?" He turned away, walking up and
down, sometimes rubbing his hands together, as if washing them, then
putting them behind him; halting at the desk to gaze down at something;
going once to the safe and putting his hand upon it, but snatching it
away as if the iron were hot. Bodney followed him about with his eyes,
seeing him through cards, hearts and spades. His mind flew back to the
game, and he could see the players sitting just as he had left them, the
offensive fellow and the regular, behind a redoubt of chips. Only ten
dollars more would have saved him; he had fancied so before, but now it
was not fancy but almost a perfect knowledge. Why had he not asked the
preacher for twenty instead of ten?
"'But it is so strange," said the old man, sitting down with one arm
straight out upon the green baize table; and the wretch with his mind on
the game thought that it would be but an ungainly position for a player
to take; he ought to sit facing the table with his hands in front of
him. "Stranger than truth," said the Judge, and Bodney looked at him
with a start. For a moment the game vanished and darkness fell upon the
players, but soon a blue curtain was pulled aside, a black face, grim,
without a smile, showed glistering behind the glass, the door was
opened, and there again were the players in the light, the offensive
fellow drawing one card, the regular solemn and confident with a hand
that was pat. "Stranger than the strangest truth that I have ever
encountered," the Judge went on, turning his back to the table and
looking over Bodney's head at something on the wall. "But I brood too
much."
"One card," said Bodney, in a thick muse.
"What's that?"