Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

566 Mysterious sort of duck. Roamed into the place one night, cold sober, ate an ice- cream cone, talked to Ed a minute, then walked over to where I was negotiating the wheel and pulled out a roll of bills that would make a rhinoceros bilious. ‘Gimme a thousand bucks’ worth of chips,” he said in an offhand voice, and whisked a couple of five-hundred-dollar bills off the roll. I doled them out and then‘ looked over at Ed, who ’d heard the order, and who almost swallowing the bar-towel to keep down his excitement. The visitor rang his fingers along the edges of the chips, listening to ’em click for a minute, then pushed the whole shebang on the board, with the command. “Let ’em lay where they stop.” I wouldn’t have moved ’em for a million. They had all bunched up on the red, and all I had to do was to turn the wheel and put on the pressure. Which I did. Then, seeing that by some strange freak of for- tune, he’d lost his bet, I raked in the chips. But did it worry him? It did not. “Funny how the game goes,” he an- nounced, still in that offhand voice; ‘‘ you never can tell.’’ “One gets you twenty-eight,” I began to drone. ‘‘One gets you twenty-eight. Pick your numbers and make your bets, then watch the turning of the wheel. I’m here to lose, you’re here to win.” But he just looked at me and grinned again. “Not me! I’ve got a little rule. Never more than a thousand a night. It’s a bad habit to get into. As long as I play thts little system I'll never go broke.” “No?” I was gulping a little. ‘ Sup- “T lost all the time? Well,” and he shrugged his shoulders, “I guess I could stand it.” “You must be a millionaire.” ‘Oh, I’d hardly say that.”” Then he gave me that genial grin again and turned away to where Ed was waiting for him with a set of mechano toys for the children and a pound of chocolates. A little bunch had gathered around the wheel, and they were all buzzing at once, under their breath. Slim Pickens, the baggageman, edged up THE ARGOSY. close with an air of several drinks and a good deal of authority. “T know who he is,” he whispered. ‘“ Oil man. Name’s Horace Q. Keever.” ‘““ How do you know?” ‘‘ Seen him when he came in this after- noon on the three twenty. Wasn’t dressed up like he is now, and had on a pair of gray field-shoes, all splashed up with oil like he’d been around a gusher somewhere. How come it that I got his name? I saw him register at the hotel, that’s how.” Well, that didn’t excite us much. There were plenty of oil men with lots of money dropping in every day or two. That’s about the only oil excitement we had—taking away the cash from the people that had made it out of the wells up Casper way. It never had struck any of us that the other way ’d be worth fooling with. The fellow who got money in that fashion had to take a lot of risks and do a lot of work. All we had to do was to sit steady in the boat and let °em come along and get trimmed. Just the same, I couldn’t help feeling a lot of interest in Horace Q. Keever, princi- pally through the hope that he’d come back and lay down another thousand to help along the good cause. Which he did; and when he pulled out that roll of bills it seemed to me that it was bigger than ever. I piled into bed that night before Ed could ask me any questions. I was afraid that his blooming conscience might begin to work again, and suggest that Horace Q. be allowed to win a few times, just to keep him in a good humor. On the third evening there was Horace Q. back again, to eat his ice-cream cone, chin a while with Ed, and then come on over to the roulette-wheel for his nightly trimming. He got it; but the only excitement it caused was on the part of the gang that had gath- ered to see him lose it. By that time it had become sort of a habit with me to rake in the chips, and I’d gathered almost as much of an offhand attitude as the gentleman himself. But not Ed. Fact is, something seemed to have been eating on Ed for the last couple of days. I'd noticed the old rings beginning to form under his eyes, like they used to do back in the days when he’d sob out his soul after JOO (C(O) S (C0)