When I, at the unripe age of seventeen, left my father’s poor
cottage-house on Tom’s Run and threw myself into life’s struggle, I
sought Pittsburg as a nearest promising arena of effort. I had a
small place at a smaller wage as a sort of office boy and porter for
a down-town establishment devoted to a commerce of iron; but as I came
early to cut my connection with that hard emporium we will not dwell
thereon.
I have already told you how by nature I was a gambler. I had inborn
hankerings after games of chance, and it was scant time, indeed, before
I found myself on terms of more or less near acquaintance with every
card sharper of the city. And I became under their improper tutelage
an expert cheat myself. At short cards and such devices as faro
and roulette, I soon knew each devious turn and was in excellent
qualification to pillage my way to eminence if not to riches among the
nimble-fingered nobility of the green tables into whose midst I had
coaxed or crowded my way. Vast was my ambition to soar as a blackleg,
and no student at his honest books burned with more fire to succeed.
I became initiate into such mysteries as the “bug,” the “punch,” the
“hold-out”; I could deal “double” or “from the bottom;” was a past
master of those dubious faro inventions, the “snake,” the “end squeeze,”
and the “balance top;” could “put back” with a clean deftness that might
deceive even my masters in evil doing, and with an eye like a hawk read
a deck of marked cards with the same easy certainty that I read the
alphabet. It was a common compliment to my guilty merit that no better
craftsman at crooked play ever walked in Diamond Alley.
No, as I’ve heretofore explained, there dawned a day when I gave up card
gambling and played no more. It is now twenty years since I wagered so
much as a two-bit piece in any game other than the Wall Street game of
stocks. And yet it was no moral arousal that drew me from roulette,
from farobank and from draw poker. I merely awoke to the truth that the
greatest simpleton of cards is the professional gambler himself; and
with that I turned my back on the whole scurvy business and quit the
dens for the exchange. And with no purpose to preach, I say openly and
with a fullest freedom that the game of stock speculation is as replete
of traps and pitfalls, and of as false and blackleg character as any
worst game of iniquitous faro that is dealt with trimmed and sanded deck
from a dishonest box. As an arena of morals the stock exchange presents
no conscious improvement beyond what is offered by the veriest dead-fall
ever made elate with those two rings at the bell which tell the waiting
inmates that some “steerer” is on the threshold with rustic victim to
be fleeced. I once read that the homestead of Captain Kidd, the pirate,
stood two centuries ago on that plot of ground now covered by the New
York Stock Exchange; and I confess to a smile when I reflected how
the spirit of immortal rapine would seem to hover over the place. The
exchange is a fit successor to the habitat of that wild freebooter
who died and dried in execution dock when long ago the Stuart Anne was
queen.
During those earlier months in Pittsburg, I was not permitted by my
father--who had much control of me, even unto the day of his death--to
altogether abandon Tom’s Run, and the good, grimy miner folk, its
inhabitants. My week’s holiday began with each Saturday’s noon; from
that hour until Monday morning I was free; and thus, obeying my father’s
behests, Saturday evening and Sunday, I was bound to pass beneath my
parents’ roof.
It was during one of these visits home when I first cheated at
cards--memorable event!--and it was on another that my roguery was
discovered and my father struck that blow.
As already stated, my father was of Welsh extraction. It was no less
the fact, however, that his original stock was Irish; his grandfather--I
believe it to have been that venerable and I trust respected
gentleman--coming to Wales from somewhere on the banks of the
Blackwater. And my father, excellent man! had vast pride in his Irish
lineage and grew never so angry, particularly if a bit heated of his
Saturday evening cups, as when one spoke of him as offshoot of the rocky
land of leeks and saintly David.
“What!” he would cry; “because I was born in Wales, do you take me for
an onion-eating Welshman? Man, I’m Irish and don’t make that mistake
again!”
The vigor wherewith his mine-hardened fist smote the table as conclusion
to this, carried such weight of emphasis that no man was ever found to
fall a second time into the error.
For myself, the question whether my ancestors were Welsh or Irish held
little interest. I was looking forward not backward, and a hot avarice
to hunt dollars drove from my bosom the last trace of concern touching a
genealogy. I would sooner have one year’s run of uninterrupted luck at
a gambling table than to know myself a direct descendant of the
Plantagenets. Not so my dear old father; to the hour when death closed
his eyes--already sightless for ten years--burned out with a blast,
they were--he ceased not to regale me with tales of that noble line of
dauntless Irish from whom we drew our blood. For the ten years following
the destruction of his eyes by powder, I saw much of my father, for I
established him at a little country tavern near enough to the ocean to
hear the surf and smell the salt breath of it, and two or three times a
week I made shift to get down where he was. And whether my stay was for
an hour or for a night--as on Sunday this latter came often to be the
chance--he made his pedigree, or what he dreamed was such, the proud
burden of his conversation.
Brian Boru, I remember, was an original wellhead of our family. My
father was tireless in his settings forth of this hero king of Munster;
nor did he fail at the close of his story to curse the assassin who
struck down Boru at Clontarf. Sometimes to tease him, I’d argue what
must have been the weak and primitive inconsequence of the royal Boru.
I’d suggest that by the sheer narrowness and savagery of the hour
wherein that monarch lived, he could have been nothing more royal than
the mere king of a kale patch, and probably wore less of authority
with still less of revenue and reverence than belong commonly with any
district leader of Tammany Hall.
At these base doubtings my parent’s wrath would mount. He would wax
vivid with a picture of the majesty and grandeur of the great Boru; and
of the halls wherein he fed and housed a thousand knights compared with
whom in riches, magnificence, and chivalrous feats those warriors who
came about King Arthur’s round table showed paltry, mean and low. To
crown narration he would ascribe to Boru credit as a world’s first law
giver and hail him author of the “Code Brian.”
“Shure!” he would say; “he called his scholars and his penmen about him
and he made them write down as the wor-rds fell from th’ mouth av him
th’ whole of th’ Code Brian; an’ this in tur-rn was a model of th’ Code
Napoleon that makes th’ law av Fr-rance to-day.”
It was in vain I pointed out that Napoleon’s Code found its roots and
as well, its models, in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian--I had
learned so much Latin from Father Glennon--and that nowhere in the
English law was the Code Brian, as he called it, so much as adverted to.
“An’ that’s th’ Sassenach jealousy av thim!” he would say. “An’ who was
this Justinian? Who, indade, but a thievin’ Roman imp’ror who shtole his
laws from King Boru just as th’ Dagoes now are shtealin’ th’ jobs at th’
mines from th’ Irish an’ Welsh lads to whom they belong av r-rights.”
After this I said no more; I did not explain that Justinian and his
Pandects and the others of his grand body of civil law were in existence
five centuries before the martyred Boru was born. That discovery would
have served no purpose beyond my parent’s exasperation and earned for
myself as well as the world’s historians naught save a cataract of hard
words.
You marvel, perhaps, why I dwell with such length on the memory of my
father--a poor, blind, ignorant miner of coal! I loved the old man; and
to this day when my hair, too, is gray and when I may win my wealth and
count my wealth and keep my wealth with any of the land, I recall him
as the only man for whom I ever felt either love or confidence or real
respect.
Yes; I heard much of the blood of the truculent yet wise Boru; also of
younger ancestors who fought for the Stuarts against Cromwell, against
Monmouth, against William; and later in both the “Fifteen” and in
the “Forty-five.” Peculiarly was I made to know of my mother’s close
connection by blood with the house of that brave Sarsfield “who,” as my
father explained, “fairly withstud th’ Dootchman at th’ Boyne; an’ later
made him quit befure th’ walls av Limerick.” There was one tradition of
the renowned Sarsfield which the old gentleman was peculiarly prone to
relate, and on the head of him who distrusted the legend there was sure
to fall a storm. That particular tale concerned the Irish soldier and
the sword of Wallace wight.
“Thish William Wallace,” my father was wont to say as he approached the
myth, “was a joint (giant), no less. He was nine fut ’leven inches
tall an’ his soord was eight fut foore inches long. It’s in Stirlin’
Cashtle now, an’ there niver was but one man besides Wallace who cud
handle it. Th’ Black Douglas an’ all av thim Scotchmen thried it an’
failed. Whin, one day, along comes Gin’ral Patrick Sarsfield--a little
bit av a felly, only five fut siven inches tall--an’ he tuk that soord
av William Wallace in one hand an’, me son, he made it whishtle.”
But I must press to my first crime of cards or your patience will
desert. During those summer months on Tom’s Run when the mines were open
and my father and his mates of the pick and blast were earning their
narrow pay, it was the habit of himself and four or five other gentlemen
of coal to gather in the Toni’s Run Arms when Saturday evening came on,
and relax into that amusement dear to Ireland as “forty-five.” Usually
they played for a dime a corner; on occasional rich evenings the stakes
mounted dizzily to two-bits, though this last was not often.
Now I was preyed on by a desire to make one at this Saturday contention,
but my father would never consent.
“Jack,” he’d say; “you’d only lose your money. Shure! you’re nawthin’
but a boy an’ not fit to pla-ay cards with th’ loikes av grown-up
men.”
But I persisted; I argued--to myself, you may be certain--while I might
be no match for these old professors of forty-five who played the game
with never a mistake, if I, like them, played honestly, that the cunning
work I meditated could not fail to bring me in the wealth.
At last one of the others came to my rescue.
“Let him pla-ay, Mishter Roche,” he said. “Let’s win his money fr-rom
him an’ it’ll be a lesson. He’ll not lose much befure he’ll be gla-ad to
quit.”
“All right, thin,” replied my father; “you can pla-ay, Jack, till you
lose fifty cints; an’ that’ll do ye. Moind now! whin you lose fifty
cints you shtop.” And so I was made one of the circle.
As I foresaw, I did not lose the four-bits which my indulgent parent had
marked as the limits of farthest sacrifice to my ambitious innocence.
Already I had brought back to Tom’s Run a curious trick or two from
Pittsburg. It soon came to be my “deal,” and the moment I got the cards
in my hands I abstracted the ace of hearts--a most doughty creature in
this game of forty-five!--and dropped it in my lap, covering the fact
from vulgar eyes with a fold of my handkerchief. That was all the
chicane I practiced; I kept myself in constant possession of the ace of
hearts and played it at a crisis; and at once the wagered dimes of the
others began to travel into my illicit pockets where they made a merry
jingle, I warrant you!
The honest Irish from whom I was filching these small tributes never
once bethought that I might play them sharp; they attributed my gains to
luck and loud was exclamation over my good fortune. Time and again, for
I was not their equal as a mere player, I’d board the wrong card. When
I’d make such a mistake, one of them would cry: “D’ye moind that now!
D’ye moind how ba-ad he plays!”
“An’ yet,” another would add, “an’ yet he rakes th’ money!”
Altogether I regarded my entrance into this ten-cent game of forty-five
a most felicitous affair. I won at every sitting; getting up on some
occasions with as much as eight dollars of profit for my evening’s work.
In those days I went willingly to Tom’s Run, quitting Pittsburg without
a sigh; and such was my ardor to fleece these coaldigging comrades of
my father--and for that matter, my father, also; for like your true
gambler, I played no favorites and was as warm to gather in the dimes of
my parent as any--that I was usually found waiting about the forty-five
table when, following supper, they appeared. And it all went favorably
with me for perhaps a dozen sittings; my aggregate gains must have
reached the mighty sum of sixty dollars. Of a merry verity! silver was
at high tide in my hands!
One evening as the half dozen devoted to the science of forty-five
drew up to the table--myself a stripling boy, the others bearded miner
men--my father complained of an ache in his head or an ache in his
stomach or some malady equally cogent, and said he would not play.
“I’ll have me poipe an’ me mug av beer,” he said, “an’ resht mesilf a
bit. It’s loike I’ll feel betther afther a whoile an’ then I’ll take a
haand.”
Play began, while my suffering father with his aches, his tobacco and
his beer, sat nursing himself at a near-by table. I lost no time in
acquiring my magic ace of hearts and at once the stream of usual fortune
set in to flow my way.
Ten years, yes, one year later, my suspicions touching my father’s
illness and his reasons for this unprecedented respite from the cares of
forty-five would have stood more on tiptoe. As it was, however, it never
assailed me as a thought that I had become the subject of ancestral
doubts. I cheated on and on, and made hay while the sun shone with never
a cloud in the sky.
It was not noticed by me, but following a halfhour’s play and while I
was shuffling the cards for a deal, my parent stole noiselessly
behind my chair. He reached under my arm and lifted the corner of the
concealing handkerchief which filled my lap. Horrors! there lay the
tell-tale ace of hearts!
Even then I realized nothing and knew not that my villainy was made
bare. This news, however, was not long in its arrival.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” roared my father.
Coincident with this remark, the paternal hand--not the lightest nor
least formidable on Tom’s Run--dealt me a buffet on the head that lifted
me from my sinful chair and hurled me across the room and against the
wall full fifteen feet away. My teeth clattered, my wits reeled, while
my ill-gotten silver danced blithely to metallic music of its own.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” again shouted my father.
Then seizing me by the collar, he lifted me to my feet. “Put all your
money on the ta-able!” he cried; “put ivry groat av it!”
There was no escape; I was powerless in the talons of an inexorable
fate. My pockets yielded a harvest of hardby seventy-five
dollars--something more than the total of my winnings--and this was
placed in the center of the table which had so lately witnessed my
skill. An even distribution was then made by my father among the
victims, each getting his share of the recovered treasure; my father
keeping none for himself though urged by the others to that end.
“No,” said my father; “I’ll touch niver a penny av it. You take th’
money; I’ll make shift that the dishgrace of bein’ fa-ather to a
rapparee shall do for me share!”
With that, he withdrew from the scene of my downfall, carrying me fast
in his clutch; and later--bathed in tears of pain and shame--I was
dragged into the presence of my mother and Father Glennon by the
ignominious ear.
It did not cure me of cards, however; I ran the whole gamut of gambling
and won dangerous prominence as a sharper of elevation and rank.
To-morrow evening, should you care to listen, I may unfold concerning
other of my adventures; I may even relate--as a tale most to my
diplomatic glory, perhaps--how I brought Casino Joe to endow me with
that great secret, richer, in truth! than the mines of Peru! of “How to
Tell the Last Four.”
*****
“Speakin’ of gamblin’,” observed the Old Cattleman when the Red Nosed
Gentleman had come to a full stop, “I’ll bet a bloo stack that
as we-alls sets yere talkin’, the games is goin’ brisk an’ hot in
Wolfville. Thar won’t be no three foot of snow to put a damper on trade
an’ hobble a gent’s energies in Arizona.” This last with a flush of
pride.
“Does everybody gamble in the West?” asked the Sour Gentleman.
“Every sport who’s got the dinero does,” responded the Old Cattleman.
“White folks, Injuns an’ Mexicans is right now at roulette an’ faro bank
an’ monte as though they ain’t got a minute to live. I hates to
concede ’em so much darin’, but the Mexicans, speshul, is zealous for
specyoolations. Which they’d shore wager their immortal souls on the
turn of a kyard, only a Greaser’s soul don’t own no market valyoo.”
“If you will,” said the Jolly Doctor, “you might tell us something of
Mexicans and their ways, their labors and relaxations--their loves and
their hates. I’d be pleased to hear of those interesting people from one
who knows them so thoroughly.”
“Which I shore knows ’em,” returned the Old Cattleman, “an’ as
I concedes how each gent present oughter b’ar his share of the
entertainment, I’ll tell you of Chiquita of Chaparita.”