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 gra.s.s 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 c.o.c.ktail, 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 Musee 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 st.i.tches in Jerry"s hide yesterday afternoon and he was playing this hunch, which he had reason to feel was a first-cla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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--n.o.body"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 n.o.ble sweeps of her powerful arms. The game was on again.
Cousin Egbert by now was looking slightly disturbed, or _outre_, 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.