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III

A number of weeks had come and gone ere I again laid eyes upon Checkers, and then it chanced most unexpectedly.

I had stayed at my office late one evening, finishing up some odd jobs which I had allowed to accumulate. The additional work and the lateness of the hour lent a keen edge to my appetite, and I decided to dine down town and perhaps drop into one of the theaters.

As I hastened along on my way to Kinsley's (I am not a member of the down-town clubs) a figure stepped out of a neighboring doorway, and brushed against me in passing. It was Checkers. I knew him at once. But I gave no sign of recognition and hoped to escape him unobserved. A futile hope, for he knew me as quickly, and in an instant was by my side.

"Why, Mr. Preston," he exclaimed grabbing and shaking my passive hand. "Say, on the dead, I 'm glad to see you; why is it you have n't been out to the track? I 've had 'something good' nearly every day. I wish I had seen you an hour ago. I 've been playing 'the bank,' and they 've cleaned me flat. They say that's the squarest game on earth, but the cards do run dead wrong for me. Where you going – to eat? Well, say, as the tramp says, 'Me stomach tinks me troat's cut.' Back me against a supper, will you? It's a hundred to one I get the best of it." And so he rattled on and on, never waiting for his questions to be answered, careless and slangy as ever.

As I turned into Kinsley's I hesitated, as to whether simply to dismiss him straight, or to give him a dollar and tell him to go and satisfy his evident hunger. He saw me pause and read my thoughts, but he did not propose thus to be disposed of.

"Come on," he said, starting quickly ahead and entering the elevator. "We 're going up to the café, ain't we?"

I was greatly minded to turn on my heel and tell him to go to the deuce, if he chose. But his manner was wholly ingenuous, and "after all," I said to myself, "I'm tired and he 's amusing. It's something after 8 o'clock and no one will be here at such an hour." At all events I disliked a scene, and so I simply acquiesced, and took him to a quiet corner of the large dining-room, where I seated myself in such a way as to have my back to whomsoever might come in.

Without consulting the taste of my guest, I ordered a steak with mushrooms, potatoes, a salad, dessert and a bottle of claret, and began to read the evening paper.

For perhaps ten minutes we both were silent. I glanced at Checkers several times as I folded my paper in or out. He seemed to be lost in a reverie. But at last his thoughts came back to earth, and glancing up he said very softly, "The last time I took supper here was with my wife a year ago."

"Your wife," I exclaimed, starting with surprise. "You do n't mean to tell me you have a wife?"

"I had a wife," he answered sorrowfully, "but – "

"I beg you pardon, Checkers," I said, "I hope I have n't hurt your feelings."

"No, you have n't hurt them," he replied. "I 've got my feelings educated. I 've had so many ups and downs I 've learned to take my medicine. But I 'll bet I 've had the toughest luck of any guy that ever lived. A' year ago I had money, a wife and friends, and was doing the Vanderbilt act. In two short weeks I lost them all. I 've been 'on my rollers' ever since.

"But say, you wouldn't have known me if you 'd seen me here with my wife that time – my glad rags on, a stove-pipe lid, patent leather kicks and a stone on my front. We came to Chicago to take in the Fair, and dropped in here to eat, one night.

"We sat at that table over there; I remember it as though it was yesterday. I ordered all kinds of supper, and at last the waiter brings in some cheese and crackers. It was a kind of a greenish, mouldy cheese – Rocquefort! Yes, I believe that's it. I goes against a little piece of it, and 'on the grave,' I like to fainted. Good! Well, maybe you think it's good, but scratch your Uncle Dudley out of any race where they enter Rocquefort.

"Yes; those were happy days for me. I hate to think about them now. I had a good time while it lasted, though, and when they got me 'on the tram,' I had to go to hustlin'. Well, here comes supper. Excuse me now, while I get busy with a piece of that steak."

"But, Checkers," I expostulated, "I 'd like to hear the particulars. You must have an interesting story to tell. And if you don't mind – "

"Oh, I do n't know. It's a hard luck story. I've had the hot end of it most of my life. But you can see for yourself that I'm no 'scrub.' I come from good people, and I 've lived with good people. I can put up a parlor talk, or a bar-room talk. I've seen it all. But of course when a fellow 'hits the toboggan,' he gets to going down mighty fast."

"I appreciate all that, my boy," I said, "or I should n't have brought you here; and now if you will, while we are eating our dinner, give me a little sketch of how it all happened."

"Well, there is n't very much to tell as I know of – at least, anything that would interest you. To look back now it kind of seems as though things just pushed themselves along.

"You see, in the first place, my father and Uncle Giles, his brother, both fought in the war. Well, father got shot and came home a cripple. About ten years afterwards I was born. Then father died, and mother got a pension. She had some little money besides. After the war Uncle Giles came back and hung around our house. He was 'flat,' and he couldn't get a job. But he finally got some pension-shark to push a pension through for him, and after that he 'pulled his freight' and went to Baltimore to live. Mother and I stayed here in Chicago.

"Well, I went to school until I was twelve, and then I went to work in a store. Mother's health was very bad, though, and at last we went South on account of her lungs. We went to San Antonio, and at first the air kind of did her good. I gets a job in a dry goods store, and things are rollin' pretty smooth, when one night mother takes to coughing, has a hemorrhage and dies.

"There's no use trying to tell you my feelings. Mother was dead and I was alone. There was hardly a soul to come to her funeral. The minister and a few of the neighbors came in – my God, it was simply awful. I was still a kid, only fifteen, you see, and I felt the terrible lonesomeness of it.

"Well, mother had saved considerable money – twenty-six hundred dollars in all. I sold our furniture and came to Chicago, and went to board with some friends of the family. I worked more or less for two or three years; but my money made me kind of 'flossy,' and whenever I 'd feel like it, I 'd just throw up the job and quit.

"After a while I got so I did n't try to work. I fell in with a gang of sports that used to hang around the pool-rooms, and pretty soon 'your little Willie' was losing his money right and left. The local meeting came along, and I took to going out to the track. I was nearly broke when one day a tout tried to 'get me down' on a 'good thing' he had. I told him I would n't play it, but I afterwards shook him and put twenty on it – I 'm a goat if it did n't win, and I pulled down a thousand. I looked for the guy who gave me the tip, but I could n't find him anywhere. I guess he fell dead with surprise himself – at least I 've never seen him since.

"Now, about that time, I had to quit the family I was living with. They broke up housekeeping and moved away, leaving me on a cold, cold world. After that I did nothing but play the races. I followed them from town to town – St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, New Orleans – winning a little now and then, but up against it most of the time.

"I got the malaria down south, and I took a notion I 'd go to Hot Springs. You ever been there? No? Well say, you talk about your sportin' life – there is the onliest place to see it. Every kind of a gamblin' game you ever heard of runnin' wide – and everybody goes against 'em.

"I had heard that some of the games were crooked, and I thought I 'd be foxy and leave them alone. I left my leather full of bills with the clerk up in the hotel safe.

"A little more potato, please. Thanks, I am hungry, and that's no dream.

"Well, as I was saying, one day at the bath I meets a young guy in the cooling-room, and he springs a system to beat roulette, which figures out a mortal cinch. I do n't remember the system now, but I recollect we tried it ourselves on a private wheel, and it could n't lose. The only trouble with it was that with luck against us we might get soaked in doubling up before we win. But we made up our minds to begin it small, and be content with a little profit.

"We had a bank-roll of $600 – four from me and two from him. I was to have two-thirds of the profits, because I risked two thirds of the stuff.

"It was Thursday night we set to try it. Thursday was always my Jonah day. I wanted to wait until Saturday, but he did n't want to wait that long. I was to do the playing while he kept tab and told me what to do each whirl.

"Well, we buys a stack of a hundred chips, and runs them up to two hundred and fifty. I says, 'let's quit,' but he was stuck on pushing our luck while it came our way. We played along for half an hour, and hardly varied $50; then, all at once, we 'struck the slide,' and I had to buy another stack. We lost that; bought another and lost it, and stood in the hole $300.

"All the while we were playing the system, and I had a 'hunch' that if we kept on it would pull us out. So I starts to buy another stack when Kendall – his name was Arthur Kendall – stops me and says he wants to quit. Quit, with half our money gone! I was so sore I could have smashed him. And while we stood there arguing, without a nickel on the board, the wheel was rollin' dead our way – enough to have put us ahead of the game.

"I gave him his hundred, and told him to 'take it and chase himself' – I was through with him. I stuck to the game until five in the morning. They got every cent I had in the world.

"Well, I went to the hotel and went to bed, but I lay there wondering how I was going to dig up the money to pay my bill, and give me a start when my luck turned again. The longer I wondered the tougher it seemed. Finally I ordered an absinthe frappé – it kind of gave me a new idea. I 'd put up a song to my Uncle Giles, and try to make a little 'touch.'

"I had n't seen or heard of him for half a dozen years, but I thought after all we had done for him, he could n't hardly lay down on his nephew.

"Well, I wrote him a letter that would have brought tears to a pair of glass eyes. Say, it was the literary effort of my life. Of course, I did n't just stick to the facts. Then I goes down and gets me a little breakfast, and begins to feel like myself again.

"This was Friday. Saturday my hotel bill was coming due. I had to make a killin' somehow to get my trunk and clothes away.

"I chased myself from joint to joint, but I could n't get next to anything. There was n't a thing I could hock nor no one that I could 'give the borry.' Have you ever been flat broke, Mr. Preston, with not a nickel in your jeans; no one to stake you; no place to go, and nothing to keep you from starving to death? You haven't, eh? Well, then you do n't begin to know what trouble is. You feel as though every one had you 'sized,' or as though you were going to be arrested. You can't help thinking about the stuff you blew so reckless when you were flush – the night you got out and spent a hundred, and say, if you only had it now! You take a paralyzed oath on your mother that if you ever get right again you'll 'salt your stuff' and be a 'tight-wad' – and then you remember you 're broke again. I 've been up against some dead tough luck, and I 've had some fancy crimps put in me, but somehow I 've never felt so 'on my uppers' as I did at the Springs that night.

"Say, if this hard-luck story of mine gets tiresome to you, ring me off. I did n't think I 'd be so long in getting to where my troubles began."

I assured him that I felt the tale immensely interesting, as indeed I did, not only in its mere detail, but taken in connection with the youth who sat there, telling me his story in his naïve way, as unconcerned as though he had the Bank of England to draw upon. With not a penny in his pocket, or for aught I knew a place to sleep, it certainly seemed that, with the sparrows, he leaned most heavily on Providence.

"Let 's have the rest of it, Checkers," I said; "I 'm anxious to hear how you raised the wind."

He sipped his coffee and puffed his cigarette with a retrospective air, inhaling the smoke at every draught, or blowing it forth in little rings which he watched as they circled off into space.

I waited in silence.

"Well," he continued, "it was nothing but 'gallop on after the torch.' About 10 o'clock I blew into a joint that I had n't been to – a gambling house. There was a gang around the faro-bank, and I shoved in to see what was going on. I hope I may drop if Kendall was n't sitting there, howling, paralyzed full. He had a lot of chips in front of him, playin' 'em like a drunken sailor. He had down bets all over the board, and, honest, it gave me heart disease to see him play. He puts a stack on the ace to win. In a minute or two another player coppers it, and takes it down. I jumps in and grabs him by the arm. 'Hold on,' I hollered, 'Arthur, here's a piker that's touchin' you for your chips.'

"Say, there was trouble right away. The piker made a smash at me. I dodged and caught him an upper cut, and the bouncer grabbed him and threw him out. This sort of sobered Arthur up, and for a while he played 'em 'cagey.' I goes over by him, and puts up a bluff to the gang that I 'm a friend of his. You see I wanted to get him out before they got his money away. It was a 'pipe' he'd lose it all the minute his luck turned. But as long as I was n't playing myself, I knew I 'd better not get too gay, but I watched his bets, and stacked his chips, and saw that no one pinched his sleepers.

"Well, every few minutes he 'd call for a drink, and what do you think he was drinking? Sherry. Did you ever get a jag on sherry? Well, neither did I, but it gives you a 'beaut.' Arthur had a 'carry-over' that lasted him for about three days. He 'd slap his chips down any old place. It was the funniest thing you ever saw. But he was playing in drunken luck, and I let him do what he wanted to.

"Well, to make a long story short, I finally 'cashed him in' for $200. I got him into a hack, and took him to my room. But say, when I got that boy undressed and abed and asleep, I 'll tell you like these: I was just three minutes ahead of a fit, and the fit was gaining on me fast. I had to take a couple of absinthes before I could get myself together. But you ought to have seen Kendall in the morning. He had a horrible 'sorry' on. The wheels were buzzing around in his head until I believe if he 'd have put his fingers in his ears, they 'd have been cut off – I do on the square. He could n't remember a thing he 'd done, except that he started out on a 'sandy' after he left me playing roulette – the night before, you recollect, and he got a 'package' aboard that he ought to have made at least two trips for.

"I gave him his money, and told him where I found him, and how I saved it for him, and he began to cry like a baby. You see his nerves were all to pieces. He wanted me to take him home; nothing would do but he must go home. He felt too rocky to go alone, and besides he could n't trust himself. He begged me for God's sake not to leave him or he 'd get full again, or shoot himself.

"I found out afterward that he had solemnly promised his girl that he 'd never get drunk again. That's what it was that gave him that awful 'sorry.' You know how it is when you love a girl. While you 're with her it seems dead easy to live decent, and do what 's right, and you promise anything. Then some day you get out with the gang and 'fall,' and the next morning R. E. Morse is sitting up on the edge of your bed giving you the horrible ha-ha.

"Well, anyhow, I finally agreed to take him home. He lived in Clarksville, Ark. He gave me the roll to pay our bills with and buy the tickets and one thing and another, while he went down to the bath to boil out. But say, the hardest job of my life was not to 'pinch' that coin and 'duck.' It was mine by rights. He 'd never have kept it if I had n't jumped in and saved it for him. But, thank God, I can say one thing, I never stole a cent in my life. I may have separated three or four guys from their stuff, perhaps, at different times; but they always got a run for their money, and if they dropped it it was n't my fault. So I just could n't bring myself to do it. And I was thankful afterwards that I did n't.

"The happiest year I ever had came to me on account of that trip – and the unhappiest. But I would n't give up the pleasant memories if I had to go through twice the troubles again.

"'The banister of life is full of slivers,' as old man Bradley used to say, and when a fellow 'hits the slide,' he's apt to pick up a splinter or two. But I 'll tell you, if you 've only got some happy times that you 've had with your mother or sisters, your wife, or your girl, to look back to and think about, when you 're in hard luck, it's a kind of a bracer, and saves your life – "

He suddenly stopped. I followed his gaze, and turning around saw Murray and three other friends coming toward me. I felt it an ill-timed interruption; but I ordered cigars and liquid refreshments, and introduced, all but Murray, to Mr. Edward Campbell, which I had learned was the proper name of my little friend.

I was needed, Murray explained, "to make the fifth man in some game of theirs which could not be played to advantage with less;" and knowing that I was to work late, they had taken a chance of finding me here.

In vain I begged to be excused, pleading indisposition, the lateness of the hour, anything and everything which might have served to drive them off. But "the evening was young," "the table was ready," and I "ought to be accommodating," and so I said good-bye to Checkers, and slipping him a dollar, told him to come to my office next day, and I would talk with him of another matter.

He thanked me, saying he would be there, and shaking my hand, bid us all good night. Then tiptoeing back he whispered in my ear: "Say, I want to give you a little advice: Never come in on less than jacks, and never raise a one-card draw, unless you 've got a 'pat' yourself. If you stick to that you 'll have the coin when the rest of the gang are 'on the tram.'"

IV

The following morning at about 10 o'clock Checkers sauntered into my office; his hands in his pockets; his hat on the back of his head; smoking the ubiquitous cigarette.

I was busy at the time with my morning's mail.

Picking up the daily paper he tilted back comfortably in a chair, and interested himself in the sporting news.

"Well, Checkers," I said, when at last I had finished, "How are you this morning, my boy?"

"If I felt any better I could n't stand it," he answered, throwing down the paper. "But you do n't look very fit. How did you come out with the boys last night?"

"About even," I replied, deprecatorily.

He smiled in a most exasperating way.

"Now I'll tell you," he said growing suddenly confidential. "There 's a 'hot thing' coming off to-day, and I want you to put a swell bet on it. They've been laying dead with it all the meeting – pulled his head off his last two outs – but to-day they 've got him in a good soft spot, and they 're going to 'put it over the plate.'"

"Checkers," I said, "I want you to understand, once and for all, that I am no gambler. I went to the races Derby Day, as I would go to any other show, and now and then I play a little quarter limit game with my friends. But even that I do n't approve of. I tell you I consider gambling the most insidious of all the vices, and it's on just that point that I want to talk to you.

"I want you to give up that kind of life, get a position in some good house, and begin to make a man of yourself. I tell you you 're too bright a boy to be throwing yourself away as you are. Suppose your 'good thing' wins to-day – suppose you do make some money on it – you will lose it on something else to-morrow. You are simply living from hand to mouth, growing older every day with nothing to show for the time you have spent.

"Now, what I propose is simply this. I shall look about among all my friends in the wholesale lines, and try to find you a position where you can learn some business from the beginning. If you are industrious and quick it will be but a comparatively short time when you 'll have a chance to go on the road, or something of that sort. Now, what do you say?"

I can't say that Checkers seemed wholly delighted. He looked anywhere but into my eyes and finally said he "would like a job, but he did n't believe I could get him one."

I replied that I was sure I could, as my uncle was a wholesale dry-goods merchant, and I had several friends who were heads of departments in other large stores of various kinds.

"Well, we 'll try it and see," he said resignedly, "but I 'll tell you just about how it is. A guy goes into a wholesale house and he starts at the bottom in some department. He gets up at the break of day, and he works like the devil after a Christian. If he has good luck he do n't get 'fired,' but he never gets a raise on earth, unless the mug above him dies, or breaks down his health and has to quit.

"Why, I knew a joker who worked in a certain big store in this town for fifteen years. He lived somewhere way out in the suburbs, and he told me he had to get down so early, that when he was coming home at night he used to meet himself starting down in the morning. Well, one day some one gave him a pass to the Harlem track – one Saturday afternoon. He went to the races for the first time in his life. I got ahold of him and made him win three hundred dollars with a five-dollar bill, and you ought to have heard the talk he put up. 'Has this game been going on all this time,' he says, 'with me doing the Rip Van Winkle act? Why, I 'd be worth all kinds of money now, if I 'd had any sense.' And Monday he went down and threw up his job, and started in to play the ponies. Of course he went broke, but not long ago he struck a streak, and made a killin'. He started in to making a book, and now he's got a stable with five good sprinters, and a twenty thousand dollar bank-roll. If he had stuck to his job in that store, he 'd have probably had nervous prostration by this time."

"But the case you cite, Checkers, is one in a thousand," I said, smiling broadly in spite of myself. "While that one man may have made a success of a very questionable sort through unusual luck, or unusual shrewdness, there have numberless others gone to ruin – utter, irretrievable ruin, by giving way to their passion for gambling.

"If you object to a wholesale house, I may perhaps find something else for you to do. But it seems to me to be simply a shame that a boy of your ability and brains should be content to be nothing but a tout, and herd with the riff-raff and scum of creation. Now, once and for all, if you desire to better yourself, I shall be glad to help you; but otherwise I must simply refuse to have you about me any longer. Think it over and come in to-morrow, and tell me your decision. Now, you must excuse me as I have an engagement with this gentleman," and I turned to greet a friend whose timely arrival saved me from the "touch" which I could see Checkers was nerving himself to make.

I found however that to secure an immediate position for my protégé was a much more difficult matter than I had at first imagined. I spoke to a dozen different people. Most of them assured me that they already had more help than they had need of. Others needed no one now, but thought they might in a month or two. My uncle said that "for my sake he would try to make a place for my friend." But when I told him all the facts, he shook his head and looked very dubious.

Meanwhile at frequent intervals, Checkers would drop into my office, and chat of the happenings of other days, or tell me of his present doings. It seemed to me, as I often told him, that if he would only exercise one-half the thought and ingenuity in the pursuit of something legitimate that he used in "separating the angels he got next to from their gold," he would long since have achieved a fortune.

He delighted in telling of the successful working of some new scheme he had figured out for the trapping of the unwary. And at each recital I used to marvel at the boundless credulity of the average human.

But whenever I could I would start him off upon some incident in his former life. In the story of his boyish courtship, the trials he underwent in securing his wife, and his subsequent sorrows and misfortunes, there was an exquisite blending of humor and pathos which appealed to me immeasurably. It was seldom, however, that he would talk of those days – the sadness of it all was still too near to him. When he was in luck he never referred to them – he seemed to live in the present alone. But when, as was frequently the case, his luck deserted him and things went wrong, he would sometimes get a fit of the blues, and, falling into a reminiscent mood, would find a sort of morbid comfort in living it all over again. He would skip abruptly from scene to scene, one incident or person suggesting another, and in his own peculiar way he would describe a situation or picture a character with a vividness worthy of a Dickens. For instance, when, in speaking of his father-in-law, he said that "the family used to have to treat him with cocaine before he could stand it to give up a nickel," I thought it a very forceful way of expressing the old man's carefulness.

As the days went by and nothing came of my efforts to get a position for Checkers, I had perforce to drop the matter, and Checkers never again referred to it.

Gradually his visits became less frequent, as I ceased to continue a profitable subject; for his invention, however fertile, could not furnish new excuses forever. But I often found myself gathering up the threads of his story as he had told it, weaving into the growing fabric some strands of my own imaginings, until I seemed to find in it an odd and pathetic little romance.

The town of Clarksville, Ark., was not attractive at any time, but to Checkers, who had arrived there with Arthur Kendall at three o'clock that summer's morning en route from Hot Springs, the aspect of the place seemed particularly dismal.

The train which had brought them from Little Rock steamed away toward the Territory, and left them standing in darkness on the station platform.

A 'bus from the hotel, with two forlorn old horses driven by a sleepy, shock-headed boy, stood waiting on the other side. They entered it and went creaking off.

As Arthur had previously explained to Checkers, his father's home was some miles from town, and accordingly he thought it better for them to sleep at the hotel until morning, have their breakfast, and then drive out.

As they lumbered along the dusty streets in the silence of the early morning, Checkers peered curiously out, and found his original impressions gaining strength.

The stars were shining clear and luminous, and in the East there was just the faintest glow which told of the coming sunrise. A vaporish mist hung low on the ground, and in the dim uncertain light all objects seemed to take to themselves a weird and most uncanny look. At frequent intervals a "razor-back," already up and browsing about, would trot tardily out of the horses' way, grunting his dissatisfaction.

Shortly they turned into what seemed to be the street of the town. It was wider and dustier than any of the others, and on it stood a large brick structure, which Checkers judged to be the court house. It formed what is commonly known as "a square," for on opposite sides of the street as they passed Checkers noticed that most of the buildings were stores, with their low-burning lamps keeping watch through the night.

A few moments more and the 'bus drove up, and stopped before a low brick building.

Kendall, who had fallen asleep in his corner, awoke, and with a "here we are," jumped out and ushered Checkers into an ill-smelling room, where a heavy-eyed youth did the honors as clerk, and then lowering himself to the office of bell-boy, took their luggage and showed them the way to their room.

Arriving, they stood in the darkness, until he succeeded in lighting, with a sulphur match, a very much smoked little kerosene lamp, after which he brought them a pitcher of water, and departed without the formality of a "good night."

Immediately Arthur began to undress. This was all an old, old story to him. But Checkers fell to looking about him. He found that the door had no lock upon it, and that the windows opened wide upon a low veranda; that they boasted no screens, nor could he find that the beds had any mosquito-bars.

Kendall's face expressed a sleepy surprise. "Come on, old man; get undressed," he said, "it's nearly 4 o'clock. We have n't any too much time to sleep."

Checkers' only reply was to pull off his coat, and to sit down and begin to unfasten his shoes. A couple of June-bugs, attracted by the light, flew in at the window, and bumping around in their noisy, disagreeable way, gave Checkers an uncomfortable, crawly feeling.

The truth was, Checkers was wholly metropolitan, and this was a new experience. The darkness and silence disheartened and cowed him. He missed the confusion and glare of the city.

Kendall had fallen fast asleep, and was breathing loudly in half a minute. But Checkers lay wide-eyed and wondering, listening to the locusts and katydids outdoing themselves in the trees outside.

And then he fell to speculating about his chances for the future, wondering what the probable outcome of this new venture of his was to be. Had n't he been foolish in coming to such a God-forsaken little place? He might have borrowed some money from Kendall, and stayed at the Springs and recouped.