Part 20 (1/2)

”I admire your roguish manner that don't fool any one,” I says; ”but if we was to drink the half of Sandy's winnings, even at your robber prices, we'd all be submerged to the periscope. It looks to me,” I goes on, ”like the bazaar-robbing genius is not exclusively a male attribute or tendency.”

”How many of them knitted crawdabs you sold out there at your booths?”

he demands. ”Not enough to buy a single Belgian a T-bone steak and fried potatoes.”

”Is that so, indeed?” I says. ”Excuse me a minute. Standing here in the blinding light of your triumph, I forgot a little matter of detail such as our s.e.x is always wasting its energies on.”

So I call Sandy and Buck away from their Belgian atrocities and speak sharply to 'em.

”You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” I says--”winning all that money and then acting like old Gaspard the Miser in the Chimes of Normandy! Can't you forget your natural avarice and loosen up some?”

”I bought the bar, didn't I?” asks Sandy. ”I can't do no more, can I?”

”You can,” I says. ”Out in that big room is about eighteen tired maids and matrons of Red Gap's most exclusive inner circles yawning their heads off over goods, wares, and merchandise that no one will look at while this sinful game is running. If you got a spark of manhood in you go on out and trade a little with 'em, just to take the curse off your depredations in here.”

”Why, sure!” says Sandy. He goes back to the layout and loads Buck's hat full of red and blue chips at one and two dollars each. ”Go buy the place clean,” he says to Buck. ”Do it good; don't leave a single object of use or luxury. My instructions is sweeping, understand. And if there's a harness booth there you order a solid gold collar for old Jerry, heavily incrusted with jewels and his initials and mine surrounded by a wreath. Also, send out a pint of wine for every one of these here maids and matrons. Meantime, I shall stick here and keep an eye on my large financial interests.”

So Buck romps off on his joyous mission, singing a little ballad that goes: ”To h.e.l.l with the man that works!” And Sandy moves quickly back to the wheel.

I followed and found Cora barely surviving because she's lost nine of her three-dollar bets while Sandy was away, leaving her only about a hundred winner. Len was telling her to ”be brave, Pettie!” and she was saying it was entirely his fault that they hadn't already got their neat little home; but she would have it before she left the place or know the reason why.

It just did seem as if them three numbers had been resting while Sandy was away talking to me. They begin to show up again the minute he resumed his bets, and Cora was crowding onto the same with a rising temperature. Yes, sir, it seemed downright uncanny or miraculous the way one or the other of 'em showed up, with Sandy saying it was a shame to take the money, and Cora saying it was a shame she had to bet on all three numbers and get paid only on one.

Of course others was also crowding these numbers, though not so many as you'd think, because every one said the run must be at an end, and they'd be a fool to play 'em any farther; and them that did play 'em was mostly making ten-cent bets to be on the safe side. Only Sandy and Cora kept right on showing up one Egbert Floud as a party that had much to learn about pulling off a good bazaar.

It's a sad tale. Cousin Egbert had to send out twice for more cash, Cora Wales refusing to take his check on the Farmers and Merchants National for hers. She said she was afraid there would be some catch about it. I met Egbert out in the hall after the second time she'd made him send and he'd lost much of his sparkle.

”I never thought it was right to strike a lady without cause,” he says bitterly; ”but I'd certainly hate to trust myself with that frail out in some lonely spot, like Price's Addition, where her screams couldn't be heard.”

”That's right,” I says; ”take it out on the poor woman that's trying to win a nice bungalow with big sawed corners sticking out all over it, when that cut-throat Sandy Sawtelle has win about twice as much! That ain't the light of pure reason I had the right to expect from the Bazaar King of Red Gap.”

”That's neither here nor there,” says he with petulance. ”Sandy would of been just as happy if he'd lost the whole eighteen dollars him and Buck come in here with.”

”Well,” I warns him, ”it looks to me like you'd have to apply them other drastic methods you met with in this deadfall at the San Francisco Fair--strong-arm work or medicine in the drinks of the winners, or something like that--if you want to keep a mortgage off the old home. Of course I won't crowd you for that two dollars you promised me for every one that goes out of the hall. You can have any reasonable time you want to pay that,” I says.

”That's neither here nor there,” he says. ”Luck's got to turn. The wheel ain't ever been made that could stand that strain much longer.”

And here Luella Stultz comes up and says Mrs. Wales wants to know how much she could bet all at once if she happened to want to. I could just see Cora having a sharp pain in the heart like a knife thrust when she thought what she would of win by betting ten dollars instead of one.

Cousin Egbert answers Luella quite viciously.

”Tell that dame the ceiling sets the limit now,” says he; ”but if that ain't lofty enough I'll have a skylight sawed into it for her.”

Then he goes over to watch, himself, being all ruined up by these plungers. Leonard was saying: ”Now don't be rash, Pettie!” And Pettie was telling him it was his negative mind that had kept her from betting five dollars every clip, and look what that would mean to their pile!

Cousin Egbert give 'em one look and says, right out loud, Leonard Wales is the biggest ham that was ever smoked, and he'd like to meet him, man to man, outside; then he goes off muttering that he can be pushed so far, but in the excitement of the play no one pays the least attention to him. A little later I see him all alone out in the hall again. He was scrunched painfully up in a chair till he looked just like this here French metal statue called _Lee Penser_, which in our language means ”The Thinker.” I let him think, not having the heart to p.r.o.ng him again so quick.

And the game goes merrily on, with Sandy collecting steadily on his hunch and Cora Wales telling her husband the truth about himself every time one of these three numbers didn't win; she exposed some very distressing facts about his nature the time she put five apiece on the three numbers and the single-o come up. It was a mad life, that last hour, with a lot of other enraged ladies round the layout, some being mad because they hadn't had money to play the hunch with, and others because they hadn't had the nerve.

Then somebody found it was near midnight and the crowd begun to fall away. Cousin Egbert strolls by and says don't quit on his account--that they can stick there and play their hunch till the bad place freezes over, for all he cares; and he goes over to the bar and takes a drink all by himself, which in him is a sign of great mental disturbance.

Then, for about twenty minutes, I was chatting with the Mes-dames Ballard and Price about what a grand success our part had been, owing to Sandy acting the fool with Cousin Egbert's money, which the latter ain't wise to yet. When I next notice the game a halt has been called by Cora Wales. It seems the hunch has quit working. Neither of 'em has won a bet for twenty minutes and Cora is calling the game crooked.