AT THE PANDEMONIUM CLUB.
It was Wednesday night; over forty men sat down to the house-dinner at
the Pandemonium Club. As usual the dinner was _recherché_, for the
Pandemonium _chef_ enjoyed a world-wide reputation. It is to be feared
that the attractions of the house-dinner were not the sole inducement to
many of those sitting there. A house-dinner always secured a large party
in the card-room afterwards, and though the Pandemonium was a celebrated
dining club, it was notoriously also a gambling one. Though the
Pandemonium was a gambler's paradise, and many scandals had occurred
there, yet the dirty linen had been always washed at home, and the exact
details of these affairs had never leaked out. Young Spooner, of the
Foreign Office, Sir John Spooner's, the Warwickshire baronet, eldest
son, had certainly left London as fourth secretary to the Teheran
Embassy, where he still remained; while Rolls, a briefless barrister,
who was fond of backing himself at the whist table, had taken his name
off the books, though he had honourably paid his losses, and suddenly
accepted the not over-brilliant position of an Assistant-Judgeship on
the Gold Coast: pay there was high and promotion rapid, but no one had
ever been known to live long enough to take a pension.
Magnums of the driest and most expensive champagne seemed to be the
favourite beverage. But the whisters as a rule drank claret, in
anticipation of the more serious _business_ that was sure to follow the
weekly house-dinner. Captains Spotstroke and Pool were equally careful;
the rest of those present drank freely. The elaborate dessert was
followed by a general move. Old Sir Peter Growler and Canon Drivel,
D.D., retired to the smoke-room, where they retailed their old, but
exceedingly improper anecdotes, to a select circle of the very youngest
men. In the billiard-room, pool at half sovereign lives, was commenced,
and promised to run into the small hours--a sure harvest for Captains
Spotstroke and Pool. In confidence it may be said that Spotstroke's
little place in the south of Ireland only existed in his own
imagination, his rents being entirely derived from his skill with his
cue, and the certain income that he extracted from the very safe little
book that he made on most of the great events of the year. A small
contingent of the members hurried off to applaud the successful comic
opera of the hour.
The card-room attracted its usual _habitués_, these sat down to whist;
and if an unskilled unfortunate joined the fatal tables, he soon had
reason to regret his temerity. Pound points were habitually played at
the Pandemonium, and as the evening went on, though the points never
varied, betting among the players and the "gallery" usually became
extremely heavy. Discussions never arose at the whist tables of this
rather fast club, for the players had Cavendish and Pole at their
fingers' ends. General Pepper, C.B., had raised his eyes in unfeigned
astonishment and horror, when an old Worcestershire baronet, his
partner, once made a reference to Hoyle, and professed himself
unacquainted with "the Peter." Needless to say, the Worcestershire
baronet had returned to his ancestral acres a sadder but a wiser man. He
showed his wisdom in giving the Pandemonium card-room a very wide berth
for the rest of his days. He subsequently had the good sense to join the
comic opera division, and to finish his evenings with the undeniable
oysters, for which the Pandemonium is so celebrated. No one was ever
seen at this well-known club after lunch time or before dinner, save a
few miserable veterans, to whom perpetual whist was a necessity. The
bulk of the servants even, only commenced their daily duties at dusk,
while the steward never appeared till the dinner hour; but then he, poor
man, had to be to the fore all night, for it was a stern rule in the
card-room that I O U's were never seen, the play being always for ready
money, in notes and gold. Mr. Levison, the amiable steward (originally
from Hamburg), had a very Pactolus ready for the accommodation, for a
consideration, of his numerous masters, in his iron safe. Levison's
relations think he will cut up well at his death; Levison's relations
are right.
It is one in the morning. Though it is in the height of summer the
Pandemonium card-room is cool; they burn wax candles here, and gas is
absolutely banished from this particular chamber of the club, where
fortunes are sometimes lost and won. In most club card-rooms smoking is
not permitted, but at the Pandemonium it is the fashion to smoke
everywhere. One whist table only is at work; General Pepper and three
old hands of the same kidney are hard at it. The four old men rub their
blear old eyes at the conclusion of each deal, and then pull down their
faultless cuffs over their eager and bony old hands. The card table
profitably occupies some six to eight hours daily of these old fellows'
attention. There is not much harm in it after all. Probably none of them
are very much the better or very much the worse at the end of the year;
their sole ambition is the saving of a game, particularly when there is
a good "gallery" to admire their efforts. One dreaded Nemesis awaits
these men--the inevitable day when memory will begin to fail, and they
shall trump their partner's best card. Or the still more horrible
apprehension of dimness of sight; for a pair of wicked old eyes will not
last for ever; then the unhappy old player will begin to revoke, and
find himself perforce relegated to "bumble-puppy," or to
whiskey-and-water and solemn slumbers in the smoke-room, or, more
horrible still, the prolonged society of Sir Peter Growler and Canon
Drivel, D.D.
Rule XXXV. of the club states that "Cards, chess and billiards may be
played. The sum played for shall not exceed one pound points; no play is
permitted after two a.m." Rule XXXVI. says, "No game of hazard shall on
any account be played in the club-house." Rule XXXVII. sternly goes on
to assert that "any deviation from the last two rules shall be attended
with expulsion." Truly good and moral regulations. But these Draconic
laws are, unfortunately, a dead letter. Nothing is said in them about
bets. As in all clubs, only members enter the card-room; and most of the
members come to "flutter," as they term it, and to "flutter" heavily.
In the centre of the room is an oval table; some dozen men are sitting
at it; as many more stand behind their chairs. Two many-branched
candelabra, holding wax lights, brilliantly illuminate the game. Young
Lamb, who six months ago ran a "tick" for "tuck" at Eton, and trembled
_coram pædagogo_, sits, his eyes bloodshot, as, with nails driven into
his palms, he watches, in an anguish of excitement, the movements of the
dealer. Young Lamb's big cigar has been out long ago; but he pulls hard
at it, wholly unaware of the fact. It is easy enough to distinguish,
among those who smoke at least, the more innocent from the habitual
gamblers; the cigars of these latter, even at the most exciting crises,
are steadily smoked at a uniform rate, while the new hand is continually
taking a light, as often blowing sudden vast clouds, or his cigar all
unknown to him goes out, as has been described. Your young player, too,
sits with his feet tucked tightly under his chair; he never moves them,
and consequently suffers much from that hitherto undescribed
disease--that awful pain across the knees, which, for want of a better
name, may be called "gamblers' rheumatism." Are you quite sure you have
never suffered from this rather common disorder, gentle reader, at
least, if you be of the male sex? Perhaps you may remember having
occasionally walked home through the rain, utterly cleared out, without
even the needful silver for a cab, with a dry throat, and finding out
for the first time what "gamblers' rheumatism" really means. If so, it
is to be hoped that, wise man as you are, the first attack of this
disorder was also your last. But at the Pandemonium matters never went
to the extremity of a member suffering the degradation of having to walk
home in the rain. Was not kind Mr. Levison ever to the fore, with his
neat little _rouleaux_ of sovereigns, and his fat pocket-book full of
new and crisp bank-notes? Levison, as he sat at the little table in the
corner, on which were writing materials and many packs of new cards,
never refused a loan in so many words. "I wouldn't go on if I were you,
sir; the luck's dead against you to-night; I wouldn't go on, indeed I
wouldn't." This was his invariable formula. It meant that the astute
Hebrew declined to do business on any terms. No one ever argued with
Levison; all understood that this particular phrase was final. The
unhappy applicant was naturally obliged to temporarily retire from the
game, at all events for that night. No man would have been idiot enough
to have asked a loan from a fellow player; that would have been quite
contrary to the unwritten code of ethics of the Pandemonium Club:
fathers have flinty hearts, but no fathers are so proverbially
flinty-hearted as the fathers of the card-room.
Among the players were the usual club _habitués_. They are much the same
everywhere, the only difference being their clothes. The _viveurs_ at
the Pandemonium, in their faultless evening dress; the _gommeux_ at
Monte Carlo, in their tall collars and their shiny boots; the
Bohemians, in their tobacco-scented and eccentric garments; or the
thieves playing at sixpenny loo in St. Luke's--all these people are at
heart the same. But we must not class in this unclean category Lord
Spunyarn and his friend Haggard, who were both playing at the big table.
Haggard merely played for the excitement, and Spunyarn because it was a
lesser bore to play than to look on.
The game was baccarat.
The table is covered with a tightly-stretched green cloth, which is
divided by yellow lines into fourteen spaces; two larger ones in the
centre of the table are the places of the banker and the croupier;
twelve other spaces of a smaller size indicate the seats of the rest of
the players, or "punters," as they are technically termed. The table is
full, as has been stated: a bank has just been terminated, and the
banker retires, having lost the whole amount of his bank. The croupier,
who is, of course, a professional--a bald Frenchman, nominally one of
the card-room waiters--looks round the table with the air of an
auctioneer. "Fifty pounds--seventy-five--a hundred--two hundred--two
hundred and fifty--three hundred; thank you, sir. Mr. Haggard takes the
bank, gentlemen, at three hundred pounds."
Haggard rises with a smile, seats himself in the dealer's vacant place,
opposite the croupier; he places in front of him a pile of gold and
notes. With the rapidity of one of Messrs. Coutts' young men, the French
croupier counts the money; he arranges the gold in little piles, and the
notes in three little heaps, placing a small paper-weight on each heap.
Then the croupier tears open two packets of new cards, flinging the old
ones into a waste-paper basket at his side. He invites various players
to make the cards; this is done in rather a perfunctory manner. With a
sort of huge paper-knife the Frenchman passes the cards to Haggard, and
as he does so, remarks in a clear, but mechanical voice: "Gentlemen, the
bank is opened for three hundred pounds." Haggard takes the cards, and,
dividing them into two equal parts, rapidly shuffles them, by raising a
corner of each parcel simultaneously, and letting the corners slip with
a rapid "brrr." Evidently, from the dexterity and precision with which
this feat is accomplished, Georgie Warrender's affianced lover is no
novice. He hands the cards to his right-hand neighbour, who carefully
cuts them; each player puts forth his stake towards the middle of the
table, in front of the space allotted him. These stakes are gold only as
yet, and no man's venture seems over five pounds. Haggard takes up about
a sixth part of the cards. "Gentlemen," cries the croupier, "the game is
made." Haggard places a card to the left, for that half of the table;
another at his right, for the other half; a third one he takes himself:
he repeats the process. The croupier slips the blade of his huge
paper-knife underneath the two cards which are on either side of the
dealer, and deposits them, unexposed, with marvellous adroitness, before
the punter on either side whose turn it is to play. Court cards and tens
count as nothing, the ace as one; should the player make either eight or
nine he invariably rests contented, and exhibits it; if below eight, he
exercises his fancy or discretion, and takes or refuses a third card.
Then Haggard turns up his own hand, doing precisely the same. He has
drawn a knave and a six; he takes another card; this turns out to be an
ace. "I have seven," he says. The player to his right holds eight, the
player to his left has only six--the right side wins, the left side
loses. In an instant the croupier, with his huge paper-knife, sweeps up
the cards, and, with the rapidity of a conjuring trick, he casts them
into a wooden bowl in the middle of the table; then he rapidly sweeps
off all the stakes on one side of the table; with equal celerity he
places each man's winnings before the players on the other side. There
are no quarrels, and no mistakes. Everybody is terribly polite. And so
the game goes on.
Though the amount played for is serious, a good deal of rather bald
conversation and chaff goes on. There is a considerable amount of give
and take. If any one has lost his temper, as well as his money, he takes
good care not to show it; to do so here would be indeed bad form. Young
Lamb has already paid several visits to Mr. Levison's little table.
Haggard's deal goes on, no very startling _coup_ coming off, but it has
been a good bank as yet, for the pile in front of Haggard has increased
to nearly six hundred pounds. Young Lamb having gnawed his extinguished
cigar till it somewhat resembles a quid, and having consequently
swallowed a considerable amount of nicotine, flings it away with a
curse. As the last note of his last loan from Levison is swept up by
the remorseless _pelle_ (for so the gigantic paper-knife is technically
termed), Lamb gives an order to the waiter, and pays another visit to
the smiling little Jew. Their business is rapidly transacted; Lamb
redeems some half-dozen I O U's which he had previously given to the
steward, hurriedly signs a formal-looking instrument, which is duly
witnessed, and stuffs into his breast-pocket a big roll of notes, which
he does not even stop to count. "I do hope you'll be careful, sir,"
remarks the steward to Lamb in an affectionate whisper, and in the tone
of an anxious mother to her favourite child. Lamb returns to his seat at
the table; he has lost eight hundred pounds already, but the bulgey lump
in his breast-pocket is another five thousand pounds. The waiter places
by his side a small gueridon on which is a little _carafe_ of green
Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass; he also hands to the young fellow a box
of big full-flavoured cigars, of the brand of _Anselmo del Valle_. Lamb
fills his case, and lights this the _ne plus ultra_ of a soothing weed.
"Dutch courage, Lammy, my boy," remarked Spunyarn, as he calmly helps
himself to one of the youth's cigars.
"You'd be doing the same, Shirtings, if you'd been hit at this beast of
a game as I have."
"Shirtings" was the playful name bestowed on the noble lord, in
reference to the well-known fact that the Spunyarn money had been made
in a Manchester cotton mill, and with that money it was said that the
Spunyarn title had been paid for; the first gentleman in Europe not
disdaining such bargains. Lamb swallows a second glass of his panacea.
The real fact is that the boy likes it because it is sweet, the
after-taste indistinctly resembling the distant memories of the
peppermint bull's-eyes of his early youth. But green Chartreuse
unhappily is not innocent; it is more than a spirit, it is a powerful
drug. Fired by this second draught, his tired eyes already a ferrety
red, his mouth dry with the tobacco, the drink and the excitement, Lamb
in a rasping voice shouts, "Banco."
There is a sudden hush. The whist players, who had finished for the
evening, hurry to the baccarat table; the other players, some of whom
had already staked their money, reluctantly withdraw their various
amounts. The croupier announces, intoning as does a high-church curate,
"There is seven hundred and forty pounds in the bank, gentlemen."
Lamb with shaking fingers places the required amount in front of him.
Haggard, the dealer, apparently unconcerned, continues the game. There
is a dead silence. Neither dealer or punter take a third card. The cards
are turned. The dealer has an eight and king, the punter a five and
three. _A tie._ The perspiration stands on young Lamb's face; again his
cigar goes out. The croupier pushes the seven hundred and forty pounds
of the unlucky player a foot nearer to the bank. The next _coup_ will
decide the matter. If Lamb wins, he will get his own money back, if he
loses, then his money is gone for good. Again a dead silence, again the
cards are dealt; this time the bank wins; there is a loud noise of
excited talking, above which rises the monotonous chant of the croupier,
"There is fourteen hundred and eighty pounds in the bank, gentlemen."
The wretched young man persistently exercises his right of crying
"Banco," and so practically going double or quits each time. But "the
cards never forgive," and as a rule Dame Fortune is relentless to the
reckless player. Three more _coups_ are played, each of which the
banker, that is to say Haggard, wins. At the end of the third _coup_,
Lamb loses, at a single blow, nearly three thousand pounds; he calls the
steward to his side, a short whispered conversation takes place. "Five
thousand nine hundred and twenty pounds in the bank." Again the young
fellow repeats his fatal "Banco," as he stakes a fresh pile of notes
handed to him by the obsequious Jew. Again he loses. Haggard has won, of
him alone, eleven thousand pounds. Nobody feels inclined to go on; every
one is rather scandalized, for it is apparent to all that the boy has
become suddenly, thoroughly intoxicated.
"Damned shame, I call it," growled old General Pepper, who in his heart
envied Haggard his luck. "Why, the man's drunk, beastly drunk, sir."
Haggard rises, glaring at old Pepper in a menacing manner. "Am I to
regard your remark as any insinuation upon me, General Pepper?" he said
fiercely.
"I say it's a damned shame," repeated the veteran.
The hubbub became general. What was to be done? Of course, there would
be a scandal, but in the eyes of most men at the Pandemonium Club,
Haggard was not to be blamed, he was merely to be envied. Probably the
real fact was that the weak young fellow was suddenly carried off his
legs by the repeated draughts of the fiery cordial, the effect of which
only became apparent to the on-lookers after the final bet had been made
and the game had recommenced. Who shall cast a stone, then, at Haggard?
He merely backed his luck, as the saying is. There was nothing unfair
about the matter. But the nasty part of the whole thing was, that
Haggard had won eleven thousand pounds from a weak-headed boy. The
society newspapers for the week alluded to the matter in veiled, but
unmistakable terms. And when Haggard announced to his friend Spunyarn
his intention of returning to America, to realize his property, on the
termination of his wedding tour, the young lord acquiesced in that
decision, casually remarking, "It would be as well if you fought shy a
bit, you know, old man, for I am heartily sick of being bothered about
the baccarat matter, and of looking in the paper to see if that young
prig Lamb has hung himself. Ta ta, you lucky beggar. I shall be to the
fore at your diggings to-morrow, in the regulation shiny boots." They
parted.
Next day Reginald Haggard was to lead Georgina Warrender to the altar,
and Spunyarn's allusion to shiny boots merely referred to the fact that
he was to be his friend Haggard's best man.