Life — August 5, 1909 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The next deal was mine. I passed and my partner made it spades. They gave us two and took simple honors for them- selves. Score, 100 to 4; one game in. My left hand opponent dealt and made it no trumps. My partner could play—and did. They made five tricks against us, with thirty in aces. Score 290 to 4. “ We stay where we are, I believe,’” said the Colonel non- chalantly, as he handed me the cards, while he footed up the totals. “Quick work, ch? Don’t remember "’—he smiled carelessly at his partner—when I have made one hundred and forty-three dollars any quicker.”” “The game is young yet," said my partner, lighting a cigarette from a tabaret by the side of the table. These words send a cold, sickening shudder all over me. I gasped—and with a mighty effort controlled myself. One hundred and forty-three dollars. They were playing for money. And I didn’t know it—I hadn't been told! I began, with an inward, feverish, mental haste—a sort of diabolical irrelevancy, you understand—for it really didn’t make any difference whether the figures were exactly right or not—to go over his score in my mind, Five twelves were sixty and thirty aces made ninety. Then a hundred for the rubber and ninety-six and four for the previous game—deduct our grand total of four—yes, it was all right—they had a total of 286, and half of that was 143, and—Heavens and carth—they were playing a dollar a point! Well, why not?) My partner's diamonds gleamed an an- swer. Why not? As if that crowd could do anything else but exact the last drop of blood from one another. Why, there was scarcely anything else for them to live for. It was my partner's deal, and as I mechanically took up the cards, I turned and caught a glimpse of Billy’s bead in the next room, between the gilt doors. Too far to signal. There I was, caught in a financial maelstrom—as if in a vice—hopeless—no escape. The facts are simple. Billy Packton and I had come to town together years before from the same village—he to be the clerk in a stock broker's office, and I to become the as- sistant professor in mathematics in College. Billy, in all these years, had made his barrel—several of them, I also had not been idle, but my honors were in slightly different strata from his. We had not seen a great deal of each other in all those years, although from time to time Billy had urged me to visit him—at his camp, on his yacht and in his motor cars. For some time, however, I had been saving up ney. When I found myself with fifteen hundred dollars in the bank, my cherished dream of going to Europe bade fair to be ac- complished. The day before I had called on Billy, who was in- terested in a steamship line, and he had been instrumental in getting me a stateroom at a reduced price. Then he had in- sisted on my coming up to his house, “to a little bridge party. You play, of course? Well, old man, this is just an informal Won't take no for an answer. Between you and But the old lady enjoys gathering. me there are a lot of freaks there. it, and I shall insist on your coming What could Ido? After Billy’s kindness, I had to accept his invitation. The thought never occurred to me—ass that I was!—that they would play for money. In our small college circles such a thing rever entered our heads. If I had onl mentioned it to Billy—told hi I couldn't afford it? Why didn’t he—but then—why should he? Naturally, he wouldn't give such a thing a thought. Why, an evening at bridge, with a difference at the end of it of a couple of thousand—that was not even worth thinking about We played on. Have you, gentle feader, ever played a losing game that you didn’t have the moral courage to get cut of— and fought, desperately fought, every move, inch by inch, with hope oozing out of your system at every pore? Never in all the course of my born days did I hold such hands. An occasional ace was like a mile post to a snail. And every rubber meant over a hundred dollars. I saw my fifteen hundred, representing that trip to Europe, melting away little by little. First London went; then the Cathedrals, then Paris, Dresden, Rome—never indeed did an empire decline so rapidly as Rome did. Why, it was all swept away in a minute by a heart sequence headed by an ace, in the hands of the Colonel. ‘ eee All things have an end. At 1 o'clock there was a swirl of departure. The air was heavy with tobacco smoke hanging in clouds around the magnificent draperies. Everyone was talking at once; for silently, silently all the evening, bottles had been opened and decanters had gone dry. Billy was near the door, his face red and full to bursting. From it all shone his interminable good nature, his really kind heart—albeit he made sometimes only partly successful efforts to steady himself. “ Joy o’ my life to seeyer here, oldman,”’ he s. come out?'’ “T lost,’ I replied, with a sickly smile, as I held out my hand to his wife. “ Devisish sorry, old chap. Sce you in mornin’. As for the hostess, she pressed my hand “ Poor old Billy,’’ she muttered. “ He does love his friends so. It is too bad you lost. Never mind. Better luck next time. You must come again soon. Oh, I forgot! You are to sail—when you come back then from Europe—Good night, Good night !"* Europe! Ha! It had cost me thirteen hundred and ninety dollars, that game of bridge had. And where was Europe? Vanished like a dream across the horizon of my hopes. . “ Howju It was 10 o'clock the next morning that my bell rang. Almost before I could answer it the door was thrust open. Billy! Billy, with his face a trifle—indeed considerably— paler than the night before; Billy with a drawn look under his eyes. “ Say, old chap!’’ he cried, tossing himself in a chair, and pouring out a glass of water from a pitcher that had been standing there all night, and gulping it off, “ you must think me a beast. Ha! Tough luck you had, wasn’t it? Well, it’s all right. In my house, you understand.”’ He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket. “The old lady says you lost fourteen hundred. She got it from your partner—Mrs. What's her name? Doesn't matter. She's got scads, Glad she caught it. Well, here it is, old fellow. Awfully sorry you had such Iuck.”’ He placed the roll on the table, and leaned over and lighted a cigarette. reakish crowd, eh?’? he said. “Don't care much for vem myself. Wife enjoys it. Oh, well, it’s all in a lifetime.” He got up, came over and started to slap me on the shoulder. “ Awfully obliged that you came, old chap.” My temperament is strictly mathematical. At the same time, I have a soul in my body. It hurt me to have Billy do that. I indicated the money on the table. “You take that roll and get out of here—quick !"" I cried Billy looked at_me dazed. “What do you m ‘aad “Just what I say. What do you think Iam?" “But my dear fellow, I didn’t expect you to lose al thing.”” “You didn’t tell me it was for money.’” “ But that was an oversight. I meant to. I intended to pay. You have got to take it. Why, you can’t go to Europe.” “I don't expect to. I have given it up. I can wait for a couple of years more. Billy snorted with exasperation You've got to take it.” “Tl throw you downstairs if you repeat that.’* I had been able to do it in the old days, in the football field and I knew I could do it now. I have always taken care of myself. “Now,” I continued. forty-three dollars.”” How do you make that out.” “When I had lost one hundred and forty-three dollars I knew I was gambling. Before that I didn't; I just thought you had asked me in to play a friendly game. But at that point the Colonel—the man I played against—made the ob- servation that they had won one hundred and forty-three— therefore from that moment I took my own chances. It is true that I was in your house, and it might have been incon- venient and rude in me to stop—to break up the game—but I could have done it—I ought to have done—my keeping on (Continued on page 186.) ‘ou owe me just one hundred and comicbooks.com