"It takes all kinds of foreigners to make a world," said Ma
Pettengill--irrelevantly I thought, because the remark seemed to be
inspired merely by the announcement of Sandy Sawtelle that the mule
Jerry's hip had been laid open by a kick from the mule Alice, and that
the bearer of the news had found fourteen stitches needed to mend the
rent.
Sandy brought his news to the owner of the Arrowhead as she relaxed in
my company on the west veranda of the ranch house and scented the golden
dusk with burning tobacco of an inferior but popular brand. I listened
but idly to the minute details of the catastrophe, discovering more
entertainment in the solemn wake of light a dulled sun was leaving as it
slipped over the sagging rim of Arrowhead Pass. And yet, through my
absorption with the shadows that now played far off among the folded
hills, there did come sharply the impression that this Sawtelle person
was dwelling too insistently upon the precise number of stitches
required by the breach in Jerry's hide.
"Fourteen--yes, ma'am; fourteen stitches. That there Alice mule sure
needs handling. Fourteen regular ones. I'd certainly show her where to
head in at, like now she was my personal property. Me, I'd abuse her
shamefully. Only eleven I took last time in poor old Jerry; and here now
it's plumb fourteen--yes, ma'am; fourteen good ones. Say, you get
fourteen of them stitches in your hide, and I bet--thought, at first, I
could make twelve do, but it takes full fourteen, with old Jerry nearly
tearing the chute down while I was taking these fourteen--"
I began to see numbers black against that glowing panorama in the west.
A monstrous 14 repeated itself stubbornly along the gorgeous reach of
it.
"Yes, ma'am--fourteen; you can go out right now and count 'em yourself.
And like mebbe I'll have to go down to town to-morrow for some more of
that King of Pain Liniment, on account of Lazarus and Bryan getting good
and lamed in this same mix-up, and me letting fall the last bottle we
had on the place and busting her wide open--"
"Don't you bother to bust any more!" broke in his employer in a tone
that I found crisp with warning. "There's a whole new case of King of
Pain in the storeroom."
"Huh!" exclaimed the surgeon, ably conveying disappointment thereby.
"And like now if I did go down I could get the new parts for that there
mower--"
"That's something for me to worry about exclusively. I'll begin when we
got something to mow." There was finished coldness in this.
"Huh!" The primitive vocable now conveyed a lively resentment, but
there was the pleading of a patient sufferer in what followed. "And like
at the same time, having to make the trip anyway for these here supplies
and things, I could stop just a minute at Doc Martingale's and have this
old tooth of mine took out, that's been achin' like a knife stuck in me
fur the last fourteen--well, fur about a week now--achin' night and
day--no sleep at all now fur seven, eight nights; so painful I get
regular delirious, let me tell you. And, of course, all wore out the way
I am, I won't be any good on the place till my agony's relieved. Why,
what with me suffering so horrible, I just wouldn't hardly know my own
name sometimes if you was to come up and ask me!"
The woman's tone became more than ever repellent.
"Never you mind about not knowing your own name. I got it on the pay
roll, and it'll still be there to-morrow if you're helping Buck get out
the rest of them fence posts like I told you. If you happen to get stuck
for your name when I ain't round, and the inquiring parties won't wait,
just ask the Chinaman; he never forgets anything he's learned once. Or
I'll write it out on a card, so you can show it to anybody who rides up
and wants to know it in a hurry!"
"Huh!"
The powers of this brief utterance had not yet been exhausted. It now
conveyed despair. With bowed head the speaker dully turned and withdrew
from our presence. As he went I distinctly heard him mutter:
"Huh! Four-teen! Four-teen! And seven! And twenty-eight!"
"Say, there!" his callous employer called after him. "Why don't you get
Boogles to embroider that name of yours on the front of your shirt? He'd
adore to do it. And you can still read, can't you, in the midst of your
agonies?"
There was no response to this taunt. The suffering one faded slowly down
the path to the bunk house and was lost in its blackness. A light shone
out and presently came sombre chords from a guitar, followed by the
voice of Sandy in gloomy song: "There's a broken heart for every light
on Broadway--"
I was not a little pained to discover this unsuspected vein of cruelty
in a woman I had long admired. And the woman merely became irrelevant
with her apothegm about foreigners. I ignored it.
"What about that sufferer down there in the bunk house?" I demanded.
"Didn't you ever have toothache?"
"No; neither did Sandy Sawtelle. He ain't a sufferer; he's just a liar."
"Why?"
"So I'll let him go to town and play the number of them stitches on the
wheel. Sure! He'd run a horse to death getting there, make for the back
room of the Turf Club Saloon, where they run games whenever the town
ain't lidded too tight, and play roulette till either him or the game
had to close down. Yes, sir; he'd string his bets along on fourteen and
seven and twenty-eight and thirty-five, and if he didn't make a killing
he'd believe all his life that the wheel was crooked. Stitches in a
mule's hide is his bug. He could stitch up any horse on the place and
never have the least hunch; but let it be a mule--Say! Down there right
now he's thinking about the thousand dollars or so I'm keeping him out
of. I judge from his song that he'd figured on a trip East to New York
City or Denver. At that, I don't know as I blame him. Yes, sir; that's
what reminded me of foreigners and bazaars and vice, and so on--and poor
Egbert Floud."
My hostess drew about her impressive shoulders a blanket of Indian weave
that dulled the splendours of the western sky, and rolled a slender
cigarette from the tobacco and papers at her side. By the ensuing flame
of a match I saw that her eyes gleamed with the light of pure narration.
"Foreigners, bazaars, vice, and Egbert Floud?" I murmured, wishing these
to be related more plausibly one to another.
"I'm coming to it," said the lady; and, after two sustaining inhalations
from the new cigarette, forthwith she did:
* * * * *
It was late last winter, while I was still in Red Gap. The talk went
round that we'd ought to have another something for the Belgians. We'd
had a concert, the proceeds of which run up into two figures after all
expenses was paid; but it was felt something more could be
done--something in the nature of a bazaar, where all could get together.
The Mes-dames Henrietta Templeton Price and Judge Ballard were appointed
a committee to do some advance scouting.
That was where Egbert Floud come in, though after it was all over any
one could see that he was more to be pitied than censured. These
well-known leaders consulted him among others, and Cousin Egbert says
right off that, sure, he'll help 'em get up something if they'll agree
to spend a third of the loot for tobacco for the poor soldiers, because
a Belgian or any one else don't worry so much about going hungry if they
can have a smoke from time to time, and he's been reading about where
tobacco is sorely needed in the trenches. He felt strong about it,
because one time out on the trail he lost all his own and had to smoke
poplar bark or something for two weeks, nearly burning his flues out.
The two Mes-dames agreed to this, knowing from their menfolk that
tobacco is one of the great human needs, both in war and in peace, and
knowing that Cousin Egbert will be sure to donate handsomely himself, he
always having been the easiest mark in town; so they said they was much
obliged for his timely suggestion and would he think up some novel
feature for the bazaar; and he said he would if he could, and they went
on to other men of influence.
Henrietta's husband, when he heard the money wouldn't all be spent for
mere food, said he'd put up a choice lot in Price's Addition to be
raffled off--a lot that would at some future date be worth five thousand
dollars of anybody's money, and that was all right; and some of the
merchants come through liberal with articles of use and adornment to be
took chances on.
Even old Proctor Knapp, the richest man in town, actually give up
something after they pestered him for an hour. He owns the People's
Traction Company and he turned over a dollar's worth of street-car
tickets to be raffled for, though saying he regarded gambling as a very
objectionable and uncertain vice, and a person shouldn't go into
anything without being sure they was dead certain to make something out
of it, war or no war, he knowing all about it. Why wouldn't he, having
started life as a poor, ragged boy and working his way up to where
parties that know him is always very careful indeed when they do any
business with him?
Some of the ladies they consulted was hostile about the tobacco end of
it. Mrs. Tracy Bangs said that no victim of the weed could keep up his
mentality, and that she, for one, would rather see her Tracy lying in
his casket than smoking vile tobacco that would destroy his intellect
and make him a loathsome object in the home. She said she knew perfectly
well that if the countries at war had picked their soldiers from
non-smokers it would have been all over in just a few days--and didn't
that show you that the tobacco demon was as bad as the rum demon?
Mrs. Leonard Wales was not only bitter about tobacco but about any help
at all. She said our hard storms of that winter had been caused by the
general hatred in Europe which created evil waves of malignity; so let
'em shoot each other till they got sense enough to dwell together in
love and amity--only we shouldn't prolong the war by sending 'em soup
and cigarettes, and so on. Her idea seemed to be that if Red Gap would
just stand firm in the matter the war would die a natural death. Still,
if a bazaar was really going to be held, she would consent to pose in a
tableau if they insisted on it, and mebbe she could thus inject into the
evil atmosphere of Europe some of the peace and good will that sets the
United States apart from other nations.
Trust Cora Wales not to overlook a bet like that. She's a tall,
sandy-haired party, with very extravagant contours, and the thing she
loves best on earth is to get under a pasteboard crown, with gilt stars
on it, and drape herself in the flag of her country, with one fat arm
bare, while Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and the rest
is gathered about and looking up to her for protection. Mebbe she don't
look so bad as the Goddess of Liberty on a float in the middle of one of
our wide streets when the Chamber of Commerce is giving a Greater Red
Gap pageant; but take her in a hall, where you set close up to the
platform, and she looks more like our boasted liberty has degenerated
into license, or something like that. Anyway, the committee had to
promise her she could do something in her flag and crown and talcum
powder, because they knew she'd knock the show if they didn't.
This reminded 'em they had to have a program of entertainment; so they
got me on the committee with the other Mes-dames to think up things, me
always being an easy mark. I find out right off that we're a lot of
foreigners and you got to be darned careful not to hurt anybody's
feelings. Little Bertha Lehman's pa would let her be a state--Colorado
or Nebraska, or something--but he wouldn't let her sing unless it would
be a German song in the original; and Hobbs, the English baker, said his
Tillie would have to sing "Britannia Rules the Waves," or nothing; and
two or three others said what they would and wouldn't do, and it looked
like Red Gap itself was going to be dug up into trenches. I had to get
little Magnesia Waterman, daughter of the coons that work in the U.S.
Grill, to do the main singing. She seemed to be about the only American
child soprano we had. She sings right well for a kid, mostly these sad
songs about heaven; but we picked out a good live one for her that
seemed to be neutral.
It was delicate work, let me tell you, turning down folks that wanted to
sing patriotic songs or recite war poetry that would be sure to start
something, with Professor Gluckstein wishing to get up and tell how the
cowardly British had left the crew of a German submarine to perish after
shooting it up when it was only trying to sink their cruiser by fair
and lawful methods; and Henry Lehman wanting to read a piece from a
German newspaper about how the United States was a nation of vile
money-grubbers that would sell ammunition to the enemy just because they
had the ships to take it away, and wouldn't sell a dollar's worth to the
Fatherland, showing we had been bought up by British gold--and so on.
But I kept neutral. I even turned down an Englishman named Ruggles, that
keeps the U.S. Grill and is well thought of, though he swore that all he
would do was to get off a few comical riddles, and such. He'd just got a
new one that goes: "Why is an elephant like a corkscrew? Because there's
a 'b' in both." I didn't see it at first, till he explained with hearty
laughter--because there's a "b" in both--the word "both." See? Of course
there's no sense to it. He admitted there wasn't, but said it was a
jolly wheeze just the same. I might have took a chance with him, but he
went on to say that he'd sent this wheeze to the brave lads in the
trenches, along with a lot of cigars and tobacco, and had got about
fifty postcards from 'em saying it was the funniest thing they'd heard
since the war begun. And in a minute more he was explaining, with much
feeling, just what low-down nation it was that started the war--it not
being England, by any means--and I saw he wasn't to be trusted on his
feet.
So I smoothed him down till he promised to donate all the lemonade for
Aggie Tuttle, who was to be Rebekkah at the Well; and I smoothed Henry
Lehman till he said he'd let his folks come and buy chances on things,
even if the country was getting overrun by foreigners, with an Italian
barber shop just opened in the same block with his sanitary shaving
parlour; though--thank goodness--the Italian hadn't had much to do yet
but play on a mandolin. And I smoothed Professor Gluckstein down till he
agreed to furnish the music for us and let the war take care of itself.
The Prof's a good old scout when he ain't got his war bonnet on. He was
darned near crying into his meerschaum pipe with a carved fat lady on it
when I got through telling him about the poor soldiers in the wet and
cold without a thing to smoke. He says: "You're right, madam; with Jake
Frost in the trenches and no tobacco, all men should be brothers under
their hides." And I got that printed in the _Recorder_ for a slogan, and
other foreigners come into line; and things looked pretty good.
Also, I got Doc Sulloway, who happened to be in town, to promise he'd
come and tell some funny anecdotes. He ain't a regular doctor--he just
took it up; a guy with long black curls and a big moustache and a big
hat and diamond pin, that goes round selling Indian Snake Oil off a
wagon. Doc said he'd have his musician, Ed Bemis, come, too. He said Ed
was known far and wide as the world's challenge cornetist. I says all
right, if he'll play something neutral; and Doc says he'll play "Listen
to the Mocking Bird," with variations, and play it so swell you'll
think you're perched right up in the treetops listening to Nature's own
feathered songsters.
That about made up my show, including, of course, the Spanish dance by
Beryl Mae Macomber. Red Gap always expects that and Beryl Mae never
disappoints 'em--makes no difference what the occasion is. Mebbe it's an
Evening with Shakespeare, or the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, or that
Oratorio by Elijah somebody, but Beryl Mae is right there with her
girlish young beauty and her tambourine. You see, I didn't want it a
long show--just enough to make the two-bits admission seem a little
short of robbery. Our real graft, of course, was to be where the young
society débutantes and heiresses in charge of the booths would wheedle
money out of the dazed throng for chances on the junk that would be
donated.
[Illustration: "ALL SUNNED UP LIKE A MAN THAT KNOWS THE WORLD IS HIS
OYSTER AND EVERY MONTH'S GOT AN 'R' IN IT"]
Well, about three days before the show I went up to Masonic Hall to see
about the stage decorations, and I was waiting while some one went down
to the Turf Exchange to get the key off Tim Mahoney, the janitor--Tim
had lately had to do janitor work for a B'nai B'rith lodge that was
holding meetings there, and it had made him gloomy and dissolute--and,
while I was waiting, who should come tripping along but Egbert Floud,
all sunned up like a man that knows the world is his oyster and every
month's got an "r" in it. Usually he's a kind of sad, meek coot, looking
neglected and put upon; but now he was actually giggling to himself
as he come up the stairs two at a time.
"Well, Old-Timer, what has took the droop out of your face?" I ask him.
"Why," he says, twinkling all over the place, "I'm aiming to keep it a
secret, but I don't mind hinting to an old friend that my part of the
evening's entertainment is going to be so good it'll make the whole show
top-heavy. Them ladies said they'd rely on me to think up something
novel, and I said I would if I could, and I did--that's all. I'd seen
enough of these shows where you ladies pike along with pincushions and
fancy lemonade and infants' wear--and mebbe a red plush chair, with gold
legs, that plays 'Alice, Where Art Thou?' when a person sets down on
it--with little girls speaking a few pieces about the flowers and lambs,
and so on, and cleaning up about eleven-twenty-nine on the evening's
revel--or it would be that, only you find you forgot to pay the Golden
Rule Cash Store for the red-and-blue bunting, and they're howling for
their money like a wild-cat. Yes, sir; that's been the way of it with
woman at the helium. I wouldn't wish to be a Belgian at all under
present circumstances; but if I did have to be one I'd hate to think my
regular meals was depending on any crooked work you ladies has done up
to date."
"You'd cheer me strangely," I says, "only I been a diligent reader of
history, and somehow I can't just recall your name being connected up
with any cataclysms of finance. I don't remember you ever starting one
of these here panics--or stopping one, for that matter. I did hear that
you'd had your pocket picked down to the San Francisco Fair."
I was prodding him along, understand, so he'd flare up and tell me what
his secret enterprise was that would make women's operations look silly
and feminine. I seen his eyes kind of glisten when I said this about him
being touched.
"That's right," he says. "Some lad nicked me for my roll and my return
ticket, and my gold watch and chain, and my horseshoe scarfpin with the
diamonds in it."
"You stood a lot of pawing over," I says, "for a man that's the keen
financial genius you tell about being. This lad must of been a new hand
at it. Likely he'd took lessons from a correspondence school. At least,
with you standing tied and blinded that way, a good professional one
would have tried for your gold tooth--or, anyway, your collar button. I
see your secret though," I go on as sarcastically as possible: "You got
the lad's address and you're going to have him here Saturday night to
glide among the throng and ply his evil trade. Am I right or wrong?"
"You are not," he says. "I never thought of that. But I won't say you
ain't warm in your guess. Yes, you certainly are warm, because what I'm
going to do is just as dastardly, without being so darned illegal,
except to an extent."
Well, it was very exasperating, but that was all I could get out of
him. When I ask for details he just clams up.
"But, mark my words," says the old smarty, "I'll show you it takes
brains in addition to woman's wiles and artwork to make a decent
clean-up in this little one-cylinder town."
"If you just had a little more self-confidence," I says, "you might of
gone to the top; lack of faith in yourself is all that's kept you back.
Too bad!"
"All right for you to kid me," he says; "but I'd be almost willing to
give you two dollars for every dollar that goes out of this hall
Saturday night."
Well, it was kind of pathetic and disgusting the way this poor old dub
was leaning on his certainty; so I let him alone and went on about my
work, thinking mebbe he really had framed up something crooked that
would bring at least a few dollars to the cause.
Every time I met him for the next three days after that he'd be so
puffed up, like a toad, with importance and low remarks about woman
that, at last, I just ignored him, pretending I hadn't the least
curiosity about his evil secret. It hurt his feelings when I quit
pestering him about it, but he'd been outraging mine right along; so we
split even.
He'd had a good-sized room just down the hall turned over to him, and a
lot of stuff of some kind carried in there in the night, and men
working, with the door locked all the time; so I and the other ladies
went calmly on about our own business, decorating the main hall with
the flags of all nations, fixing up the platform and the booths very
pretty, and giving Mr. Smarty Egbert Floud nothing but haughty glances
about his hidden novelty. Even when his men was hammering away in there
at their work he'd have something hung over the keyhole--as insulting to
us as only a man can be.
Saturday night come and we had a good crowd. Cousin Egbert was after me
the minute I got my things off to come and see his dastardly secret; but
I had my revenge. I told him I had no curiosity about it and was going
to be awful busy with my show, but I'd try as a personal favour to give
him a look over before I went home. Yes, sir; I just turned him down
with one superior look, and got my curtains slid back on Mrs. Leonard
Wales, dressed up like a superdreadnought in a naval parade and
surrounded by every little girl in town that had a white dress. They
wasn't states this time, but Columbia's Choicest Heritage, with a second
line on the program saying, "Future Buds and Débutantes From Society's
Home Galleries." It was a line we found under some babies' photos on the
society page of a great newspaper printed in New York City. Professor
Gluckstein and his son Rudolph played the "Star-Spangled Banner" on the
piano and fiddle during this feature.
Then little Magnesia Waterman, dressed to represent the Queen of Sheba,
come forward and sung the song we'd picked out for her, with the people
joining in the chorus:
We're for you, Woodrow Wilson,
One Hundred Million Strong!
We put you in the White House
And we know you can't do wrong.
It was very successful, barring hisses from all the Germans and English
present; but they was soon hushed up. Then Doc Sulloway come out and
told some funny anecdotes about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike, lately
landed in this country and looking for work, and imitated two cats in a
backyard, and drawing a glass of soda water, and sawing a plank in two;
and winding up with the announcement that he had donated a dozen bottles
of the great Indian Snake Oil Remedy for man and beast that had been
imparted to him in secret by old Rumpatunk, the celebrated medicine man,
who is supposed to have had it from the Great Spirit; and Ed Bemis, the
World's Challenge Cornetist, entertained one and all; and Beryl Mae done
her Spanish dance that I'd last seen her give at the Queen Esther
Cantata in the M.E. Church. And that was the end of the show; just
enough to start 'em buying things at the booths.
At least, we thought it would be. But what does a lot of the crowd do,
after looking round a little, but drift out into the hall and down to
this room where Cousin Egbert had his foul enterprise, whatever it was.
I didn't know yet, having held aloof, as you might say, owing to the old
hound's offensive manner. But I had heard three or four parties kind of
gasping to each other, had they seen what that Egbert Floud was doing in
the other room?--with looks of horror and delight on their faces. That
made me feel more superior than ever to the old smarty; so I didn't go
near the place yet, but herded people back to the raffles wherever I
could.
The first thing was Lon Price's corner lot, for which a hundred chances
had been sold. Lon had a blueprint showing the very lot; also a picture
of a choice dwelling or bungalow, like the one he has painted on the
drop curtain of Knapp's Opera House, under the line, "Price's Addition
to Red Gap; Big Lots, Little Payments." It's a very fancy house with
porches and bay windows and towers and front steps, and everything,
painted blue and green and yellow; and a blond lady in a purple gown,
with two golden-haired tots at her side, is waving good-bye to a tall,
handsome man with brown whiskers as he hurries out to the waiting street
car--though the car line ain't built out there yet by any means.
However, Lon got up and said it was a Paradise on earth, a Heaven of
Homes; that in future he would sell lots there to any native Belgian at
a 20 per cent. discount; and he hoped the lucky winner of this lot would
at once erect a handsome and commodious mansion on it, such as the
artist had here depicted; and it would be only nine blocks from the
swell little Carnegie Library when that, also, had been built, the
plans for it now being in his office safe.
Quite a few of the crowd had stayed for this, and they cheered Lon and
voted that little Magnesia Waterman was honest enough to draw the
numbers out of a hat. They was then drawn and read by Lon in an exciting
silence--except for Mrs. Leonard Wales, who was breathing heavily and
talking to herself after each number. She and Leonard had took a chance
for a dollar and everybody there knew it by now. She was dead sure they
would get the lot. She kept telling people so, right and left. She said
they was bound to get it if the drawing was honest. As near as I could
make out, she'd been taking a course of lessons from a professor in
Chicago about how to control your destiny by the psychic force that
dwells within you. It seems all you got to do is to will things to come
your way and they have to come. No way out of it. You step on this here
psychic gas and get what you ask for.
"I already see our little home," says Mrs. Wales in a hoarse whisper. "I
see it objectively. It is mine. I claim it out of the boundless
all-good. I have put myself in the correct mental attitude of reception;
I am holding to the perfect All. My own will come to me."
And so on, till parties round her begun to get nervous. Yes, sir; she
kept this stuff going in low, tense tones till she had every one in
hearing buffaloed; they was ready to give her the lot right there and
tear up their own tickets. She was like a crapshooter when he keeps
calling to the dice: "Come, seven--come on, come on!" All right for the
psychics, but that's what she reminded me of.
And in just another minute everybody there thought she'd cheated by
taking these here lessons that she got from Chicago for twelve dollars;
for you can believe it or not but her number won the lot. Yes, sir;
thirty-three took the deed and Lon filled in her name on it right there.
Many a cold look was shot at her as she rushed over to embrace her
husband, a big lump of a man that's all right as far up as his Adam's
apple, and has been clerking in the Owl Cigar Store ever since he can
remember. He tells her she is certainly a wonder and she calls him a
silly boy; says it's just a power she has developed through
concentration, and now she must claim from the all-good a dear little
home of seven rooms and bath, to be built on this lot; and she knows it
will come if she goes into the silence and demands it. Say! People with
any valuables on 'em begun to edge off, not knowing just how this
strange power of hers might work.
Then I look round and see the other booths ain't creating near the
excitement they had ought to be, only a few here and there taking
two-bit chances on things if Mrs. Wales ain't going in on 'em, too;
several of the most attractive booths was plumb deserted, with the girls
in charge looking mad or chagrined, as you might say. So I remember this
hidden evil of Egbert Floud's and that the crowd has gone there; and
while I'm deciding to give in and gratify my morbid curiosity, here
comes Cousin Egbert himself, romping along in his dinner-jacket suit and
tan shoes, like a wild mustang.
"What was I telling you?" he demands. "Didn't I tell you the rest of
this show was going to die standing up? Yes, sir; she's going to pass
out on her feet." And he waved a sneering arm round at the deserted
booths. "What does parties want of this truck when they can come down to
my joint and get real entertainment for their money? Why, they're
breaking their ankles now to get in there!"
It sure looked like he was right for once in his life; so I says:
"What is it you've done?"
"Simple enough," says he, "to a thinking man. It comes to me like a
flash or inspiration, or something, from being down to that fair in San
Francisco, California. Yes, sir; they had a deadfall there, with every
kind of vice rampant that has ever been legalized any place, and several
kinds that ain't ever been; they done everything, from strong-arm work
to short changing, and they was getting by with it by reason of calling
it Ye Olde Tyme Mining Camp of '49, or something poetical like that.
That was where I got nicked for my roll, in addition to about fifty I
lost at a crooked wheel. I think the workers was mostly ex-convicts, and
not so darned ex- at that. Anyway, their stuff got too raw even for the
managers of an exposition, so they had to close down in spite of their
name. That's where I get my idee when these ladies said think up
something novel and pleasing. Just come and see how I'm taking it off of
'em." And, with that, he grabs me by the arm and rushes me down to this
joint of his.
At the side of the doorway he had two signs stuck up. One says, Ye Olde
Tyme Saloone; and the other says, Ye Olde Tyme Gambling Denne. You could
of pushed me over with one finger when I looked in. He'd drew the crowd,
all right. I knew then that Aggie Tuttle might just as well close down
her Rebekkah-at-the-Well dive, and that no one was going to take any
more chances on pincushions and tidies and knitted bed slippers.
About a third of the crowd was edged up to the bar and keeping Louis
Meyer and his father busy with drink orders, and the other two-thirds
was huddled round a roulette layout across the room. They was wedged in
so tight I couldn't see the table, but I could hear the little ball
click when it slowed up, and the rattle of chips, and squeals from them
that won, and hoarse mutters from the losers.
Cousin Egbert rubbed his hands and giggled, waiting for me to bedeck him
with floral tributes.
"I suppose you got a crooked wheel," I says.
"Shucks, no!" says he. "I did think of it, but I'd of had to send out of
town for one and they're a lot of trouble to put in, what with the
electric wiring and all; and besides, the straightest roulette wheel
ever made is crooked enough for any man of decent instincts. I don't
begrudge 'em a little excitement for their money. I got these old bar
fixings out of the Spilmer place that was being tore down, and we're
charging two bits a drink for whatever, and that'll be a help; and it
looks to me like you ladies would of thought you needed a man's brain in
these shows long before this. Come on in and have a shot. I'll buy."
So we squeezed in and had one. It was an old-time saloon, all
right--that is, fairly old; about 1889, with a brass foot rail, and back
of the bar a stuffed eagle and a cash register. A gang of ladies was
taking claret lemonades and saying how delightfully Bohemian it all was;
and Miss Metta Bigler, that gives lessons in oil painting and burnt
wood, said it brought back very forcibly to her the Latin Quarter of
Chicago, where she finished her art course. Henrietta Templeton Price,
with one foot on the railing, was shaking dice with three other
prominent society matrons for the next round, and saying she had always
been a Bohemian at heart, only you couldn't go very far in a small town
like this without causing unfavourable comment among a certain element.
It was a merry scene, with the cash register playing like the Swiss
Family Bellringers. Even the new Episcopalian minister come along, with
old Proctor Knapp, and read the signs and said they was undeniably
quaint, and took a slug of rye and said it was undeniably delightful;
though old Proctor roared like a maddened bull when he found what the
price was. I guess you can be an Episcopalian one without its
interfering much with man's natural habits and innocent recreations.
Then he went over and lost a two-bit piece on the double-o, and laughed
heartily over the occurrence, saying it was undeniably piquant with old
Proctor plunging ten cents on the red and losing it quick, and saying a
fool and his money was soon parted--yes, and I wish I had as much money
as that old crook ain't foolish; but no matter.
Beryl Mae Macomber was aiding the Belgians by running out in the big
room to drum up the stragglers. She was now being Little Nugget, the
Miners' Pet; and when she wasn't chasing in easy money she'd loll at one
end of the bar with a leer on her flowerlike features to entice honest
workingmen in to lose their all at the gaming tables. There was
chuck-a-luck and a crap game going, and going every minute, too, with
Cousin Egbert trying to start three-card monte at another table--only
they all seemed wise to that. Even the little innocent children give him
the laugh.
I went over to the roulette table and lost a few dollars, not being able
to stick long, because other women would keep goring me with their
elbows. Yes, sir; that layout was ringed with women four deep. All that
the men could do was stand on the outside and pass over their loose
silver to the fair ones. Sure! Women are the only real natural-born
gamblers in the world. Take a man that seems to be one and it's only
because he's got a big streak of woman in him, even if it don't show any
other way. Men, of course, will gamble for the fun of it; but it ain't
ever funny to a woman, not even when she wins. It brings out the natural
wolf in her like nothing else does. It was being proved this night all
you'd want to see anything proved. If the men got near enough and won a
bet they'd think it was a good joke and stick round till they lost it.
Not so my own sex. Every last one of 'em saw herself growing rich on
Cousin Egbert's money--and let the Belgians look out for themselves.
Mrs. Tracy Bangs, for instance, fought her way out of the mob, looking
as wild as any person in a crazy house, choking twenty-eight dollars to
death in her two fists that she win off two bits. She crowds this onto
Tracy and makes him swear by the sacred memory of his mother that he
will positively not give her back a cent of it to gamble with if the
fever comes on her again--not even if she begs him to on her bended
knees. And fifteen minutes later the poor little shark nearly has
hysterics because Tracy won't give her back just five of it to gamble
again with. Sure! A very feminine woman she is.
Tracy is a pretty good little sport himself. He says, No, and that'll be
all, please, not only on account of the sacred memory of his mother but
because the poor Belgians has got to catch it going if they don't catch
it coming; and he's beat it out to a booth and bought the
twenty-five-dollar gold clock with chimes, with the other three dollars
going for the dozen bottles of Snake Oil and the twenty street-car
tickets.
And now let there be no further words about it, but there was when she
hears this horrible disclosure--lots of words, and the brute won't even
give her the street-car tickets, which she could play in for a dollar,
and she has to go to the retiring room to bathe her temples, and treats
Tracy all the rest of the evening like a crippled stepchild, thinking of
all she could of won if he hadn't acted like a snake in the grass toward
her!
Right after this Mrs. Leonard Wales, in her flag and powder, begun to
stick up out of the scene, though not risking any money as yet. She'd
just stand there like one petrified while cash was being paid in and
out, keeping away about three women of regular size that would like to
get their silver down. I caught the gleam in her eye, and the way she
drawed in her breath when the lucky number was called out, kind of
shrinking her upper lip every time in a bloodthirsty manner. Yes, sir;
in the presence of actual money that dame reminded me of the great
saber-toothed tiger that you see terrible pictures of in the animal
books.
Pretty soon she mowed down a lot of her sister gamblers and got out to
where Leonard was standing, to tell him all about how she'd have won a
lot of money if she'd only put some chips down at the right time, the
way she would of done if she'd had any; and Leonard said what a shame!
And they drifted into a corner, talking low. I bet she was asking him if
she couldn't make a claim to these here bets she'd won in her mind, and
if this wasn't the magic time to get the little home or bungalow on the
new lot she'd won by finding out from the Chicago professor how to mould
her destiny.
Then I lose track of the two for a minute, because Judge Ballard comes
in escorting his sister from South Carolina, that's visiting them, and
invites every one to take something in her honour. She was a frail
little old lady, very old-fashioned indeed, with white hair built up in
a waterfall and curls over both ears, and a flowered silk dress that I
bet was made in Civil War times, and black lace mitts. Say! She looked
like one of the ladies that would of been setting in the front of a box
at Ford's Theatre the night President Lincoln was shot up!
She seemed a mite rattled when she found herself in a common barroom,
having failed to read Cousin Egbert's undeniably quaint signs; but the
Judge introduced her to some that hadn't met her yet, and when he asked
her what her refreshment would be she said in a very brazen way that she
would take a drop of anisette cordial. Louis Meyer says they ain't
keeping that, and she says, Oh, dear! she's too old-fashioned! So Cousin
Egbert says, why, then she should take an old-fashioned cocktail, which
she does and sips it with no sign of relish. Then she says she will
help the cause by wagering a coin on yonder game of chance.
The Judge paws out a place for her and I go along to watch. She pries
open a bead reticule that my mother had one like and gets out a knitted
silk purse, and takes a five-dollar gold piece into her little bony
white fingers and drops it on a number, and says: "Now that is well
over!" But it wasn't over. There was excitement right off, because,
outside of some silver dollars I'd lost myself, I hadn't seen anything
bigger than a two-bit piece played there that night. Right over my
shoulder I heard heavy breathing and I didn't have to turn round to know
it was Cora Wales. When the ball slowed up she quit breathing entirely
till it settled.
It must of been a horrible strain on her, for the man was raking in all
the little bets and leaving the five-dollar one that win. Say! That
woman gripped an arm of mine till I thought it was caught in machinery
of some kind! And Mrs. Doc Martingale, that she gripped on the other
side, let out a yell of agony. But that wasn't the worst of Cora Wales'
torture. No, sir! She had to stand there and watch this little
old-fashioned sport from South Carolina refuse the money!
"But I can't accept it from you good people," says she in her thin
little voice. "I intended to help the cause of those poor sufferers, and
to profit by the mere inadvertence of your toy there would be
unspeakable--really no!"
And she pushed back the five and the hundred and seventy-five that the
dealer had counted out for her, dusted her little fingers with a little
lace handkerchief smelling of lavender, and asked the Judge to show her
a game that wasn't so noisy.
I guess Cora Wales was lost from that moment. She had Len over in a
corner again, telling him how easy it was to win, and how this poor
demented creature had left all hers there because Judge Ballard probably
didn't want to create a scene by making her take it; and mustn't they
have a lot of trouble looking after the weak-minded thing all the time!
And I could hear her say if one person could do it another could,
especially if they had learned how to get in tune with the Infinite. Len
says all right, how much does she want to risk? And that scares her
plumb stiff again, in spite of her uncanny powers. She says it wouldn't
be right to risk one cent unless she could be sure the number was going
to win.
Of course if you made your claim on the Universal, your own was bound to
come to you; still, you couldn't be so sure as you ought to be with a
roulette wheel, because several times the ball had gone into numbers
that she wasn't holding for with her psychic grip, and the uncertainty
was killing her; and why didn't he say something to help her, instead of
standing there silent and letting their little home slip from her grasp?
Cousin Egbert comes up just then, still happy and puffed up; so I put
him wise to this Wales conspiracy against his game.
"Mebbe you can win back that lot from her," I says, "and raffle it over
again for the fund. She's getting worked up to where she'll take a
chance."
"Good work!" says he. "I'll approach her in the matter."
So over he goes and tries to interest her in the dice games; but no, she
thinks dice is low and a mere coloured person's game. So then he says to
set down to the card table and play this here Canfield solitaire; she's
to be paid five dollars for every card she gets up and a whole thousand
if she gets 'em all up. That listens good to her till she finds she has
to give fifty-two dollars for the deck first. She says she knew there
must be some catch about it. Still, she tries out a couple of deals just
to see what would happen, and on the first she would have won thirteen
dollars and on the second eight dollars. She figures then that by all
moral rights Cousin Egbert owes her twenty-one dollars, and at least
eight dollars to a certainty, because she was really playing for money
the second time and merely forgot to mention it to him.
And while they sort of squabble about this, with Cousin Egbert very
pig-headed or adamant, who should come in but this Sandy Sawtelle,
that's now sobbing out his heart in song down there; and with him is
Buck Devine. It seems they been looking for a game, and they give
squeals of joy when they see this one. In just two minutes Sandy is
collecting thirty-five dollars for one that he had carefully placed on
No. 11. He gives a glad shout at this, and Leonard Wales and lady move
over to see what it's all about. Sandy is neatly stacking his red chips
and plays No. 11 once more, but No. 22 comes up.
"Gee!" says Sandy. "I forgot. Twenty-two, of course, and likewise
thirty-three."
So he now puts dollar bets on all three numbers, and after a couple more
turns he's collecting on 33, and the next time 22 comes again. He don't
hardly have time to stack his chips, they come so fast; and then it's
No. 11 once more, amid rising excitement from all present. Cora Wales is
panting like the Dying Gamekeeper I once saw in the Eden Musée in New
York City. Sandy quits now for a moment.
"Let every man, woman, and child, come one, come all, across the room
and crook the convivial elbow on my ill-gotten gains!" he calls out.
So everybody orders something; Tim Mahoney going in behind the bar to
help out. Even Cora Wales come over when she understood no expense was
attached to so doing, though taking a plain lemonade, because she said
alcohol would get one's vibrations all fussed up, or something like
that.
Cousin Egbert was still chipper after this reverse, though it had swept
away about all he was to the good up to that time.
"Three rousing cheers!" says he. "And remember the little ball still
rolls for any sport that thinks he can Dutch up the game!"
While this drink is going on amid the general glad feeling that always
prevails when some spendthrift has ordered for the house, Leonard Wales
gets Buck Devine to one side and says how did Sandy do it? So Buck tells
him and Cora that Sandy took eleven stitches in Jerry's hide yesterday
afternoon and he was playing this hunch, which he had reason to feel was
a first-class one.
"If I could only feel it was a cosmic certainty--" says Cora.
"Oh, she's cosmic, all right!" says Buck. "I never seen anything
cosmicker. Look what she's done already, and Sandy only begun! Just
watch him! He'll cosmic this here game to a standstill. He'll have Sour
Dough there touching him for two-bits breakfast money--see if he don't."
"But eleven came only twice," says the conservative Cora.
"Sure! But did you notice Nos. 22 and 33?" says Buck. "You got to humour
any good hunch to a certain extent, cosmic or no cosmic."
"I see," says Cora with gleaming eyes; "and No. 33 is not only what drew
our beautiful building lot but it is also the precise number of my years
on the earth plane."
Cousin Egbert overheard this and snorted like no gentleman had ought to,
even in the lowest gambling den.
"Thirty-three!" says he to me. "Did you hear the big cheat? Say! No
gambling house on earth would have the nerve to put her right age on a
wheel! The chances is ruinous enough now without running 'em up to
forty-eight or so. I bet that's about what you'd find if you was to
tooth her."
Sandy has now gone back, followed by the crowd, and wins another bet on
No. 11. This is too much for Cora's Standard Oil instincts. She never
trusts Leonard with any money, but she goes over into a corner, hikes
the flag of her country up over one red stocking for a minute, and comes
back with a two-dollar bill, which she splits on 22 and 33; and when 33
wins she's mad clean through because 22 didn't also win, and she's
wasted a whole dollar, like throwing it into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Too bad, Pettie!" says Leonard, who was crowded in by her. "But you
mustn't expect to have all the luck"--which is about the height of
Leonard's mental reach.
"It was not luck; it was simple lack of faith," says Cora. "I put myself
in tune with the Infinite and make my claim upon the all-good--and then
I waver. The loss of that dollar was a punishment to me."
Now she stakes a dollar on No. 33 alone, and when it comes double-o she
cries out that the man had leaned his hand on the edge of the table
while the ball was rolling and thereby mushed up her cosmic vibrations,
even if he didn't do something a good deal more crooked. Then she
switches to No. 22, and that wins.
She now gets suspicious of the chips and has 'em turned into real
money, which she stuffs into her consort's pockets for the time being,
all but two dollars that go on Nos. 11 and 33. And No. 22 comes up
again. She nearly fainted and didn't recover in time to get anything
down for the next roll--and I'm darned if 11 don't show! She turns
savagely on her husband at this. The poor hulk only says:
"But, Pettie, you're playing the game--I ain't."
She replies bitterly:
"Oh, ain't that just like a man! I knew you were going to say
that!"--and seemed to think she had him well licked.
Then the single-o come. She says:
"Oh, dear! It seems that, even with the higher consciousness, one can't
be always certain of one's numbers at this dreadful game."
And while she was further reproaching her husband, taking time to do it
good and keeping one very damp dollar safe in her hand, what comes up
but old 33 again!
It looked like hysterics then, especially when she noticed Buck Devine
helping pile Sandy's chips up in front of him till they looked like a
great old English castle, with towers and minarets, and so on, Sandy
having played his hunch strong and steady. She waited for another turn
that come nothing important to any of 'em; then she drew Leonard out and
made him take her for a glass of lemonade out where Aggie Tuttle was
being Rebekkah at the Well, because they charged two bits for it at the
bar and Aggie's was only a dime. The sale made forty cents Aggie had
took in on the evening.
Racing back to Ye Olde Tyme Gambling Denne, she gets another hard blow;
for Sandy has not only win another of his magic numbers but has bought
up the bar for the evening, inviting all hands to brim a cup at his
expense, whenever they crave it--nobody's money good but his; so Cora is
not only out what she would of made by following his play but the ten
cents cash she has paid Aggie Tuttle. She was not a woman to be trifled
with then. She took another lemonade because it was free, and made Len
take one that he didn't want. Then she draws three dollars from him and
covers the three numbers with reckless and noble sweeps of her powerful
arms. The game was on again.
Cousin Egbert by now was looking slightly disturbed, or _outré_, as the
French put it, but tries to conceal same under an air of sparkling
gayety, laughing freely at every little thing in a girlish or painful
manner.
"Yes," says he coquettishly; "that Sandy scoundrel is taking it fast out
of one pocket, but he's putting it right back into the other. The
wheel's loss is the bar's gain."
I looked over to size Sandy's chips and I could see four or five markers
that go a hundred apiece.
"I admire your roguish manner that don't fool any one," I says; "but if
we was to drink the half of Sandy's winnings, even at your robber
prices, we'd all be submerged to the periscope. It looks to me," I goes
on, "like the bazaar-robbing genius is not exclusively a male attribute
or tendency."
"How many of them knitted crawdabs you sold out there at your booths?"
he demands. "Not enough to buy a single Belgian a T-bone steak and fried
potatoes."
"Is that so, indeed?" I says. "Excuse me a minute. Standing here in the
blinding light of your triumph, I forgot a little matter of detail such
as our sex is always wasting its energies on."
So I call Sandy and Buck away from their Belgian atrocities and speak
sharply to 'em.
"You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves," I says--"winning all that
money and then acting like old Gaspard the Miser in the Chimes of
Normandy! Can't you forget your natural avarice and loosen up some?"
"I bought the bar, didn't I?" asks Sandy. "I can't do no more, can I?"
"You can," I says. "Out in that big room is about eighteen tired maids
and matrons of Red Gap's most exclusive inner circles yawning their
heads off over goods, wares, and merchandise that no one will look at
while this sinful game is running. If you got a spark of manhood in you
go on out and trade a little with 'em, just to take the curse off your
depredations in here."
"Why, sure!" says Sandy. He goes back to the layout and loads Buck's
hat full of red and blue chips at one and two dollars each. "Go buy the
place clean," he says to Buck. "Do it good; don't leave a single object
of use or luxury. My instructions is sweeping, understand. And if
there's a harness booth there you order a solid gold collar for old
Jerry, heavily incrusted with jewels and his initials and mine
surrounded by a wreath. Also, send out a pint of wine for every one of
these here maids and matrons. Meantime, I shall stick here and keep an
eye on my large financial interests."
So Buck romps off on his joyous mission, singing a little ballad that
goes: "To hell with the man that works!" And Sandy moves quickly back to
the wheel.
I followed and found Cora barely surviving because she's lost nine of
her three-dollar bets while Sandy was away, leaving her only about a
hundred winner. Len was telling her to "be brave, Pettie!" and she was
saying it was entirely his fault that they hadn't already got their neat
little home; but she would have it before she left the place or know the
reason why.
It just did seem as if them three numbers had been resting while Sandy
was away talking to me. They begin to show up again the minute he
resumed his bets, and Cora was crowding onto the same with a rising
temperature. Yes, sir, it seemed downright uncanny or miraculous the way
one or the other of 'em showed up, with Sandy saying it was a shame to
take the money, and Cora saying it was a shame she had to bet on all
three numbers and get paid only on one.
Of course others was also crowding these numbers, though not so many as
you'd think, because every one said the run must be at an end, and
they'd be a fool to play 'em any farther; and them that did play 'em was
mostly making ten-cent bets to be on the safe side. Only Sandy and Cora
kept right on showing up one Egbert Floud as a party that had much to
learn about pulling off a good bazaar.
It's a sad tale. Cousin Egbert had to send out twice for more cash, Cora
Wales refusing to take his check on the Farmers and Merchants National
for hers. She said she was afraid there would be some catch about it. I
met Egbert out in the hall after the second time she'd made him send and
he'd lost much of his sparkle.
"I never thought it was right to strike a lady without cause," he says
bitterly; "but I'd certainly hate to trust myself with that frail out in
some lonely spot, like Price's Addition, where her screams couldn't be
heard."
"That's right," I says; "take it out on the poor woman that's trying to
win a nice bungalow with big sawed corners sticking out all over it,
when that cut-throat Sandy Sawtelle has win about twice as much! That
ain't the light of pure reason I had the right to expect from the Bazaar
King of Red Gap."
"That's neither here nor there," says he with petulance. "Sandy would
of been just as happy if he'd lost the whole eighteen dollars him and
Buck come in here with."
"Well," I warns him, "it looks to me like you'd have to apply them other
drastic methods you met with in this deadfall at the San Francisco
Fair--strong-arm work or medicine in the drinks of the winners, or
something like that--if you want to keep a mortgage off the old home. Of
course I won't crowd you for that two dollars you promised me for every
one that goes out of the hall. You can have any reasonable time you want
to pay that," I says.
"That's neither here nor there," he says. "Luck's got to turn. The wheel
ain't ever been made that could stand that strain much longer."
And here Luella Stultz comes up and says Mrs. Wales wants to know how
much she could bet all at once if she happened to want to. I could just
see Cora having a sharp pain in the heart like a knife thrust when she
thought what she would of win by betting ten dollars instead of one.
Cousin Egbert answers Luella quite viciously.
"Tell that dame the ceiling sets the limit now," says he; "but if that
ain't lofty enough I'll have a skylight sawed into it for her."
Then he goes over to watch, himself, being all ruined up by these
plungers. Leonard was saying: "Now don't be rash, Pettie!" And Pettie
was telling him it was his negative mind that had kept her from betting
five dollars every clip, and look what that would mean to their pile!
Cousin Egbert give 'em one look and says, right out loud, Leonard Wales
is the biggest ham that was ever smoked, and he'd like to meet him, man
to man, outside; then he goes off muttering that he can be pushed so
far, but in the excitement of the play no one pays the least attention
to him. A little later I see him all alone out in the hall again. He was
scrunched painfully up in a chair till he looked just like this here
French metal statue called _Lee Penser_, which in our language means
"The Thinker." I let him think, not having the heart to prong him again
so quick.
And the game goes merrily on, with Sandy collecting steadily on his
hunch and Cora Wales telling her husband the truth about himself every
time one of these three numbers didn't win; she exposed some very
distressing facts about his nature the time she put five apiece on the
three numbers and the single-o come up. It was a mad life, that last
hour, with a lot of other enraged ladies round the layout, some being
mad because they hadn't had money to play the hunch with, and others
because they hadn't had the nerve.
Then somebody found it was near midnight and the crowd begun to fall
away. Cousin Egbert strolls by and says don't quit on his account--that
they can stick there and play their hunch till the bad place freezes
over, for all he cares; and he goes over to the bar and takes a drink
all by himself, which in him is a sign of great mental disturbance.
Then, for about twenty minutes, I was chatting with the Mes-dames
Ballard and Price about what a grand success our part had been, owing to
Sandy acting the fool with Cousin Egbert's money, which the latter ain't
wise to yet. When I next notice the game a halt has been called by Cora
Wales. It seems the hunch has quit working. Neither of 'em has won a bet
for twenty minutes and Cora is calling the game crooked.
"It looks very, very queer," says she, "that our numbers should so
suddenly stop winning; very queer and suspicious indeed!" And she glared
at Cousin Egbert with rage and distrust splitting fifty-fifty in her
fevered eyes.
Cousin Egbert replied quickly, but he kind of sputtered and so couldn't
have been arrested for it.
"Oh, I've no doubt you can explain it very glibly," says Cora; "but it
seems very queer indeed to Leonard and I, especially coming at this
peculiar time, when our little home is almost within my grasp."
Cousin Egbert just walked off, though opening and shutting his hands in
a nervous way, like, in fancy free, he had her out on her own lot in
Price's Addition and was there abusing her fatally.
"Very well!" says Cora with great majesty. "He may evade giving me a
satisfactory explanation of this extraordinary change, but I shall
certainly not remain in this place and permit myself to be fleeced.
Here, darling!"
And she stuffs some loose silver into darling's last pocket that will
hold any more. He was already wadded with bills and sagging with coin,
till it didn't look like the same suit of clothes. Then she stood there
with a cynical smile and watched Sandy still playing his hunch, ten
dollars to a number, and never winning a bet.
"You poor dupe!" says she when Sandy himself finally got tired and quit.
"It's especially awkward," she adds, "because while we have saved enough
to start our little nook, it will have to be far less pretentious than I
was planning to make it while the game seemed to be played honestly."
Cousin Egbert gets this and says, as polite as a stinging lizard, that
he stands ready to give her a chance at any game she can think of, from
mumblety-peg up. He says if she'll turn him and Leonard loose in a
cellar that he'll give her fifty dollars for every one she's winner if
he don't have Len screaming for help inside of one minute--or make it
fifteen seconds. Len, who's about the size of a freight car, smiles kind
of sickish at this, and says he hopes there's no hard feelings among old
friends and lodge brothers; and Egbert says, Oh, no! It would just be in
the nature of a friendly contest, which he feels very much like having
one, since he can be pushed just so far; but Cora says gambling has
brutalized him.
Then she sees the cards on the table and asks again about this game
where you play cards with yourself and mebbe win a thousand dollars
cold. She wants to know if you actually get the thousand in cash, and
Egbert says:
"Sure! A thousand that any bank in town would accept at par."
She picks up the deck and almost falls, but thinks better of it.
"Could I play with my own cards?" she wants to know, looking suspicious
at these. Egbert says she sure can. "And in my own home?" asks Cora.
"Your own house or any place else," says Egbert, "and any hour of the
day or night. Just call me up when you feel lucky."
"We could embellish our little nook with many needful things," says
Cora. "A thousand dollars spent sensibly would do marvels." But after
fiddling a bit more with the cards she laid 'em down with a pitiful
sigh.
Cousin Egbert just looked at her, then looked away quick, as if he
couldn't stand it any more, and says: "War is certainly what that man
Sherman said it was."
Then he watches Sandy Sawtelle cashing in his chips and is kind of
figuring up his total losses; so I can't resist handing him another.
"I don't know what us Mes-dames would of done without your master mind,"
I says; "and yet I'd hate to be a Belgian with the tobacco habit and
have to depend on you to gratify it."
"Well," he answers, very mad, "I don't see so many of 'em getting
tobacco heart with the proceeds of your fancy truck out in them booths
either!"
"Don't you indeed?" I says, and just at the right moment, too. "Then you
better take another look or get your eyes fixed or something."
For just then Sandy stands up on a chair and says:
"Ladies and gents, a big pile of valuable presents is piled just at the
right of the main entrance as you go out, and I hope you will one and
all accept same with the welcome compliments of me and old Jerry, that I
had to take eleven stitches in the hide of. As you will pass out in an
orderly manner, let every lady help herself to two objects that attract
her, and every gent help himself to one object; and no crowding or
pulling I trust, because some of the objects would break, like the
moustache cup and saucer, or the drainpipe, with painted posies on it,
to hold your umbrels. Remember my words--every lady two objects and
every gent one only. There is also a new washboiler full of lemonade
that you can partake of at will, though I guess you won't want any--and
thanking you one and all!"
So they cheer Sandy like mad and beat it out to get first grab at the
plunder; and just as Cousin Egbert thinks he now knows the worst, in
comes the girls that had the booths, bringing all the chips Buck Devine
had paid 'em--two hundred and seventy-eight dollars' worth that Egbert
has to dig down for after he thinks all is over.
"Ain't it jolly," I says to him while he was writing another check on
the end of the bar. "This is the first time us ladies ever did clean out
every last object at a bazaar. Not a thing left; and I wish we'd got in
twice as much, because Sandy don't do things by halves when his money
comes easy from some poor dub that has thought highly of himself as a
thinker about money matters." He pretends not to hear me because of
signing his name very carefully to the check. "And what a sweet little
home you'll build for the Wales family!" I says. "I can see it now, all
ornamented up, and with one of these fancy bungalow names up over the
front gate--probably they'll call it The Breakers!"
But he wouldn't come back; so I left him surrounded by the wreck of his
former smartiness and went home. At the door where the treasures had
been massed not a solitary thing was left but a plush holder for a whisk
broom, with hand-painted pansies on the front; and I decided I could
live without that. Tim Mahoney was there, grouching round about having
to light up the hall next night for the B'nai B'rith; and I told him to
take it for himself. He already had six drawnwork doilies and a vanity
box with white and red powder in it.
As I go by the Hong Kong Quick Lunch, Sandy and three or four others is
up on stools; the Chinaman, cooking things behind the counter, is
wearing a lavender-striped silk dressing sacque and a lace boudoir cap
with pink ribbons in it. Yes; we'd all had a purple night of it!
Next day about noon I'm downtown and catch sight of Cousin Egbert
setting in the United States Grill having breakfast; so I feel mean
enough to go in and gloat over him some more. I think to find him all
madded up and mortified; but he's strangely cheerful for one who has
suffered. He was bearing up so wonderful that I asked why.
"Ain't you heard?" says he, blotting round in his steak platter with a
slice of bread. "Well, I got even with that Wales outfit just before
daylight--that's all!"
"Talk on," I beg, quite incredulous.
"I didn't get to bed till about two," he says, "and at three I was woke
up by the telephone. It's this big stiff Len Wales, that had ought to
have his head taken off because it only absorbs nourishment from his
system and gives nothing in return. He's laughing in a childish frenzy
and says is this me? I says it is, but that's neither here nor there,
and what does he want at this hour? 'It's a good joke on you,' he says,
'for the little woman got it on the third trial.' 'Got what?' I wanted
to know. 'Got that solitaire,' he yells. 'And it's a good joke on you,
all right, because now you owe her the thousand dollars; and I hate to
bother you, but you know how some women are that have a delicate,
high-strung organization. She says she won't be able to sleep a wink if
you don't bring it up to her so she can have all our little treasure
under her pillow; and I think, myself, it's better to have it all
settled and satisfactory while the iron's hot, and you'd probably prefer
it that way, too; and she says she won't mind, this time, taking your
check, though the actual money would be far more satisfactory, because
you know what women are--"
"Say! He raves on like this for three minutes, stopping to laugh like a
maniac about every three words, before I can get a word in to tell him
that I'm a delicate, high-strung organization myself, if you come right
down to it, and I can't stand there in my nightgown listening to a
string of nonsense. He chokes and says: 'What nonsense?' And I ask him
does he think I'd pay a thousand dollars out on a game I hadn't
overlooked? And he says didn't I agree to in the presence of witnesses,
and the cards is laid out right there now on the dining-room table if I
got the least suspicion the game wasn't played fair, and will I come up
and look for myself! And I says 'Not in a thousand years!' Because what
does he think I am!
"So then Mis' Wales she breaks in and says: 'Listen, Mr. Floud! You are
taking a most peculiar attitude in this matter. You perhaps don't
understand that it means a great deal to dear Leonard and me--try to
think calmly and summon your finer instincts. You said I could not only
play with my own cards at any hour of the night or day, but in my own
home; and I chose to play here, because conditions are more harmonious
to my psychic powers--' And so on and so on; and she can't understand my
peculiar attitude once more, till I thought I'd bust.
"It was lucky she had the telephone between us or I should certainly of
been pinched for a crime of violence. But I got kind of collected in my
senses and I told her I already had been pushed as far as I could be;
and then I think of a good one: I ask her does she know what General
Sherman said war was? So she says, 'No; but what has that got to do with
it?' 'Well, listen carefully!' I says. 'You tell dear Leonard that I am
now saying my last word in this matter by telling you both to go to
war--and then ask him to tell you right out what Sherman said war was.'
"I listened a minute longer for her scream, and when it come, like sweet
music or something, I went to bed again and slept happy. Yes, sir; I got
even with them sharks all right, though she's telling all over town this
morning that I have repudiated a debt of honour and she's going to have
that thousand if there's any law in the land; and anyway, she'll get me
took up for conducting a common gambling house. Gee! It makes me feel
good!"
That's the way with this old Egbert boy; nothing ever seems to faze him
long.
"How much do you lose on the night?" I ask him.
"Well, the bar was a great help," he says, very chipper; "so I only lose
about fourteen hundred all told. It'll make a nice bunch for the
Belgians, and the few dollars you ladies made at your cheap booths will
help some."
"How will your fourteen hundred lost be any help to the Belgians?" I
wanted to know; and he looked at me very superior and as crafty as a
fox.
"Simple enough!" he says in a lofty manner. "I was going to give what I
win, wasn't I? So why wouldn't I give what I lose? That's plain enough
for any one but a woman to see, ain't it? I give Mis' Ballard, the
treasurer, a check for fourteen hundred not an hour ago. I told you I
knew how to run one of these grafts, didn't I? Didn't I, now?"
Wasn't that just like the old smarty? You never know when you got him
nailed. And feeling so good over getting even with the Wales couple that
had about a thousand dollars of his money that very minute!
* * * * *
Still from the dimly lighted bunk house came the wail of Sandy Sawtelle
to make vibrant the night. He had returned to his earlier song after
intermittent trifling with an extensive repertoire:
There's a broken heart for every light on Broadway,
A million tears for every gleam, they say.
Those lights above you think nothing of you;
It's those who love you that have to pay....
It was the wail of one thwarted and perishing. "Ain't it the sobbing
tenor?" remarked his employer. "But you can't blame him after the
killing he made before. Of course he'll get to town sooner or later and
play this fourteen number, being that the new reform administration,
with Lon Price as Mayor, is now safely elected and the game has opened
up again. Yes, sir; he's nutty about stitches in a mule. I wouldn't put
it past him that he had old Jerry kicked on purpose to-day!"