Part 7

“I don’t say you do--but a lot of trouble has sometimes been made in partnerships by women. So that’s why I have flipped the buried card at the start-off. Now tune up and let it went! If your voice gets husky I’ll send out a handful of bird-seed and a hunk of cuttlefish.” I reckoned he was trying his cheap humor on me to smooth the insult about the girl. It seemed to me like an insult, and he understood pretty well how I felt.

So I went to my job and minded my own business most exclusively.

Day after day, for several weeks, I stood up on my rostrum and cajoled folks into that joint, and I say frankly and honestly that for a long time I did not have full understanding of just what went on inside. Possibly that statement makes me out a mighty stupid chap.

But I was ashamed to ask any more questions after what Dawlin had yapped out about his suspicions that I was a greenhorn.

I did not have any special conversation with him, anyway. I was still ugly when I thought upon his warning about that painted girl--as if I wanted her! And I was careful that she should have no word to carry to him about me; I never looked in her direction.

Furthermore, I did not want to know very much about what they were up to inside. I was ashamed of my job. It struck me that if I came to know all the fraud of the thing I’d jack the proposition. An ostrich sort of attitude, to be sure, a foolish evasion, but that’s just how it was, like other things which came up in my life, things not lending themselves readily to explanation as I look back on them now.

I saw patrons come out, some angry and with red faces, some ashamed, some laughing--but only a few of the last, and they were plainly chaps who took it as a joke when anybody could put something across in their case.

Man after man came out with a broad piece of paper in his hand, crumpled it up, swore, and dashed it down on the sidewalk.

It was a chart purporting to be a reading of bumps, as Professor Jewelle sized up the patron’s cranium. Nobody seemed to be very well pleased. A lot of them pitched into me and said that I had promised that the reading was free.

Well, the reading was free.

But once the victim had ventured inside the curtains and after the free reading, the professor handed over the chart and demanded three dollars for it.

Disputes ended promptly, for Big Mike was always present. The vocabulary of that bellowing bull was limited to two words in those séances--“Three dollars!”

Of course I had to find this out before long or stand convicted in these records as liar and half-wit combined.

I also found out about the gazara game, Mr. Dawlin’s special project.

There was an oblong box in which were stacked leather envelopes, each envelope bearing a numbered card.

Mr. Dawlin seemed to be a very generous individual; he would allow patrons to win considerable money by picking prize envelopes into which he had slipped crisp bills; he also seemed to be a careless operator. For instance, he would quite openly put a twenty or a fifty dollar bill into the envelope holding the card numbered 0. Then he would shuffle the envelopes and with carelessness utterly blind would leave the corner of that card sticking up a bit, revealing the upper part of the numeral. Feverishly excited patrons would bid high for the privilege of drawing first--sometimes almost as high as the prize itself, for Mr. Dawlin had plainly left a good thing exposed. But, strangely enough, what had seemed like the figure 0 was revealed in the drawing as the figure 9 with an exaggerated upper loop. If the patron made moan and let out the secret of his grief, Mr. Dawlin reproached him for trying to take advantage of an oversight in an honest game. Such was the activity known as “gazara” in our establishment! I don’t know who gave the game that designation. I believe that in Maccabees a town of that name is spoken of--and being in Apocrypha seems well placed. It may be that the game started there--at the same time the gold-brick game was hatched in Gomorrah. Both schemes must be very ancient--for they are true, tried, and certain.

Mr. Dawlin had much information to give me regarding games in general. He told me about his brother Ike, a proficient gold-brick artist. He said that if I cared to go into that line he would put me next to his brother. Mr. Dawlin, as had the others of his fraternity, complimented me on my honest looks. When I dared to suggest that the gold-brick scheme must be known to everybody, and all played out, he laughed at my ignorance. He said that getting a whole lot for a little always had been a bait for human greed and always would be; as to getting at the yaps in these days, it was only a matter of fresh style of approach and men like his brother were thinking up new methods of approach all the time.

Men who needed money in a hurry to make up a balance were almost always ready to gamble heavily and desperately.

He said his brother had a deal on at that very time, but that it was too late for me to get in on that, for the thing was all set and pretty near ready to be pulled off. It was an up-country case, of course.

“Plant by ‘Peacock’ Pratt,” said Davdin. That was a new name for my roster of rascality, and I stuck it into a mental pigeonhole. “Pratt is a white-vest operator. Paunch scenery!” He saw that I wasn’t catching him very well and explained that Pratt affected the manner of a prosperous Westerner who regularly stoned neighbors’ chickens out of his garden with gold nuggets.

Speaking of gold, I was not specially dissatisfied with the rake-off I was getting from these precious rascals, though, of course, it was small as compared with my diver’s wages. But standing in the sunshine under a plug-hat with nothing to do but gabble nonsense was a softer snap than grubbing under muddy water with a diver’s helmet stuck over my head. I was truly in a way to succumb to the blandishments of my cheap screak and settle down into the practice of roguery.

But I had some sense of shame left in me. I kept on that disguising mustache when I was before the public. It was not much of a mask, to be sure, but it comforted me a bit to know that it made me look unlike myself.

And that’s why the Sortwell boys from Levant did not recognize me when they halted on the sidewalk one day and listened to my barking.

There they were, the two of them, grown up to manhood; but they were mighty green specimens. They were looking at the banners rather than at me. I wagered with myself that it was the first time they had ever been in the big city; even one trip would have rounded off some of the rough comers they were showing. For instance, they surely would have had experience with such a peep-show as we were running and would not have been tempted.

They walked over to the painted maiden and asked her if she could recommend the show; they grinned and gaped at her amorously. She fawned on them and they bought tickets and went in. I wasn’t a bit sorry, nor did I try to stop them. My last expenence with the gang in Levant had not implanted in me any hankering to hug and kiss the Sortwell boys.

I watched for them to come out, for I felt pretty sure that they would be properly trimmed and I anticipated secret relish in looking on their faces. I told myself I didn’t care. If a good jolt should be handed to them it would help in satisfying my grudge against the town which had sent me flying. Bitterness was in me at that moment. I was glad I was out of the jay place. If I had stayed there I would be looking just like those simpering rubes who had gone in like lambs to be sheared. I’d never want to go back to that town, I decided all over again.

When they came out each one carried one of Professor Jewelle’s charts, and they were crying like great calves--actually guffling slobbering sobs. They went away a little distance and stood on the sidewalk, looking at each other and scruffing tears from their eyes with the palms of their hands. Awhile back if somebody had told me I would see a couple of big, larruping chaps from Levant doing that on the street in broad daylight, I’d have predicted a good laugh for myself.

Well, there was nothing like that in my case!

A lump swelled in my throat. I don’t know what it was--whether ’twas homesickness, longing for my own people of my own kind, spectacle of boys who had gone barefoot with me, sight of their sorrow, mindfulness of what the cruel city had done to me, reflection that I had helped in a measure to get them into their scrape--I say I don’t know just what it was. But my throat gripped and tears flowed up into my eyes. Those poor devils, who were children in spite of their size, were helplessly adrift--I could see that. Something special must have happened to them.

I seem to be stopping to analyze my emotions. At the time I was doing nothing of the sort. I felt a comforting sense that I was not a rascal down in my heart, in spite of what I had done and of the job I was holding down.

I left my rostrum, ran into the little office, and tipped Dawlin’s bottle of whisky against my upper lip; the alcohol dissolved the gum and I ripped off the mustache. Then I chased along after the Sortwell boys. They were far up the street, plugging slowly with bowed shoulders.

When I came close upon them I took my time to get my breath and control my emotions. Then I called to them, and they turned around and stared at me with eyes which expressed all the range of feelings between interrogation and stupefaction.

“Well, haven’t you anything to say to an old friend?” I asked.

“It ain’t you,” faltered the older. “It may look like you, but it ain’t.”

“There ain’t anything in this place that’s looking like it really is,” whimpered the younger. “There was a card with a zero on it and it wasn’t a zero--it was a nine--and he took our money.”

“Have you lost your money, boys?”

“All of it--every scrimptom of it,” bawled the older. “We ’ain’t got anything to get home with. We saved up to come down and see the city for a couple of days--and now it’s all gone.”

“We worked all winter logging--sweating and freezing in Cale Warson’s swamp--to earn that money, and that hell-hound down there took it and jammed it into his pants pocket. And how’ll we get home?”

Oh, I knew what logging in a swamp was! I knew what sort of wages were paid and how hard it is to save! That one sentence fairly lanced my conscience. “He jammed it into his pocket!” To Jeff Dawlin, who reached out and took in his money so easily, those bills were hardly more than so much paper, as he handled them.

But he had not been a boy in a country town where money is not come at so easily, where the little hoards grow so slowly, where there are so many dreams about the big world up in the attics under the patched coverlids--dreams which the little savings may bring to realization!

These were boys from my home town. Thank God, a lot of the cheap in me, the soul-dirt I had rubbed off in my associations, the cynical notions about right and wrong, the inclinations of a swaggering sport--yes, a whole lot of that slime was washed out of me right there and then by my new emotions. I don’t say I was made anyways clean--not all of it went. I have done many things since then to be ashamed of. But I was a blamed sight more of a man when I went up and patted those poor boys on their backs, standing between them.

“Don’t take on about it any more, fellows,” I said. “I guess I’ll be able to do something for you.” My tone was pretty important and they began to look me over; they had been so fussed up that they had not taken full stock of me till then.

“Golly! You’re rich, ain’t you?” gasped the older.

“Now about losing this money--where did you lose it?” I asked, swelling a little more because I knew I was in the way to make a big impression.

“Down the street there--where those fraud duflickers are all billed out! It looked like a zero--”

“And they charged three dollars apiece for feeling of our heads!” put in the younger. “There was a big man who cracked his fists--”

“Never mind! I know all about all such places, boys. I won’t allow any such things to be put across in this city on any friends of mine!”

I was talking as if I owned the town. They goggled at me as if they believed that I did own it. When I started back toward Dawlin’s joint they followed me like hounds at heel.

I flipped a lordly gesture at the girl in the ticket-office and walked in without paying--herding my clients ahead of me. That was visible evidence of my mysterious importance, and they looked up at me as if they were ready to fall down and offer worship. For in America any man who can walk past ticket-sellers and pay by a flip of the hand, displays a power which autocrats may envy.

“You are sure this is the place?” I asked the Sortwell boys.

They breathlessly assured me that it was.

“And there’s the man who made us pay him six dollars,” declared the older.

Professor Jewelle had stepped out through the slit in his curtains. I walked up to him.

“Did you charge these gentlemen six dollars--take the money from them?” I asked, sternly.

He saw that there was something on and, like a rogue, believed, of course, that I was plotting further graft on these innocents. He played up to me with shrewd promptness.

“If I have done anything wrong I ask pardon,” he whined.

“These are particular friends of mine. Hand over their money at once!”

He turned his back on them while he pulled out the money and gave me a wink which indicated that he was on and approved whatever game I was playing. I kept my face straight and stern, for the boys were surveying me with adoration.

I handed them the money and went across to Mr. Dawlin’s booth, the hicks at my heels.

Mr. Dawlin was by nature more suspicious of his fellow-man than was Professor Jewelle, and he evidently resented the fact that I had not tipped him off in advance. He regarded me with much sullenness when I commanded him to return the money he had taken from the gentlemen. His sour unwillingness, mingled with his uncertainty, really helped my game along. It looked as if I had the power to force even such a balky mule as Dawlin seemed to be.

“I don’t know about this!” he growled.

“I can’t help that! You’ll have to take my word--till you can get something better,” I added, and I put a little significance into my last words.

And Mr. Dawlin, being a rascal who thought he could sniff a plant, decided to grab in on a partner’s game. “Why, sure, boss,” he cried, heartily, “if that’s the way you feel about it! Take any gents that’s friends of yours and all you have to do is speak the word!” He pulled out of his trousers pocket a big wad of crumpled bills. “Do you know how much they spent backing their opinion against mine?”

“It was twenty-two dollars--it was just twenty-two dollars,” piped one of the boys, and the other one helped out on the chorus.

“The rising young financiers seem to have no doubt,” sneered Dawlin.

The older boy looked at the big swatch of bills and rasped his rough hands together.

“Perhaps money don’t mean much to you, mister, handling it the way you do! But if you earnt twenty-two dollars by day’s work, getting into a popple-swamp before sunup, I guess you’d know it when you counted those dollars out to anybody.”

“So that’s the way you earned this money? How much more did you earn?” Dawlin screwed a look at me, showing fresh suspicion.

“I’ll do the talking,” I said. “I’ll talk because I know what I’m doing! I say only this: hand over the coin!”

“And I say again, I don’t know about that!”

I reckoned I was overplaying my air of importance, so I found a chance to slip him a wink which promised a good deal.

“But you know who I am!” I told him.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Then pay!”

He began to grin, finding this little comedy amusing as well as mysterious.

“Sure thing, boss! And seeing that it’s you and your orders,’ here’s five dollars for your friends on top of the twenty-two. Go and buy five dollars’ worth of corned beef and eat your heads off! Nothing like going the limit when you come down to the big burg!”

I gave Mr. Dawlin a knowing look when I turned to leave.

“My friends are much obliged for the extra five--but they can use it for something else besides eats. Come on, gentlemen! You will be my guests at dinner.”

I could see by Dawlin’s face that he took that last as a straight tip from me that I had designs on the countrymen--and that he would understand why I was quitting my job for a time. He gave me a most benignant smile when I left.

Professor Jewelle smirked and bowed when we passed him.

Big Mike, the ogre of the place, stepped politely to one side and twisted his ugly mug into a one-sided grin of apology.

So we went out in state.

There was a new feeling in me. It was a longing to be with those boys from home. Up to then I had been ashamed to meet anybody from Levant. And out of that shame had come a sort of dread to hear any news from my old town. Now I was hungry for news.

To be sure, just at that moment I was in a fool’s paradise of spurious importance. It was comforting, however, to be set on a pedestal by those Sortwell boys, and to know that at least two persons from Levant had stopped thinking of me as a runaway scalawag.

Along with my new feelings had come a sort of vague hope.

I walked out of Dawlin’s place with a hazy notion that I would never go back. Dawlin was evened up with me as to finances--I had my last week’s rake-off in my pocket.

And I may say right here that I never did go back--not to stand up and coax suckers! When I did go back I played Mr. Jeff Dawlin for one!

IX--A GRISLY GAME OF BOWLS

I DID not bother with any of the victualing houses in that low-down locality. I led the Sortwell boys uptown and ushered them into a very fancy restaurant. I could see that their opinion of my greatness was growing all of the time. I could not induce them to touch the bill of fare or even look at it. They gaped in such a frightened way when I mentioned fancy dishes, that I helped to set them at ease by ordering steak and potatoes. They ate to the last scrap, cleaning their plates with morsels of bread, even as grateful pups lick their platters. They confessed that they had not dared to go into an eating-house, and I remembered that first day when I had roamed the streets of the city.

I wanted to ask questions about Levant, but I delayed. Dave Sortwell, the older, opened up the subject, but he did not do it very gracefully.

“I reckon they can’t slur the Sidneys after this, like they have always done past back,” he said. “Here you are, something big down here in the city--and your uncle Deck is first selectman of Levant.”

So my uncle had achieved his political ambition! When I heard that news I had inside me a feeling of apprehension which I could scarcely account for.

“Elected last week at the March town-meeting,” affirmed Ardon, the brother. “We younger fellows that have come of voting age went for him--most all of us, because he say’s he is going to turn politics in our town upside down and dance a jig on the bottom of ’em.”

“He was into the tavern the other night, pretty well teaed up,” giggled Dave, “and he said he was going to gallop Judge Kingsley to hell and stand over him with a red-hot gad while he shoveled brimstone. He has got it in for the judge--and a good many folks in Levant ain’t sorry. Judge Kingsley has always gouged folks.”

“Did they put the judge out of the treasurership--did my uncle bring that about?” Hearing that the feud was on worse than ever made my heart sick. I had been hoping!

“O Lord, no! I guess the judge is forever fixed in that job. Folks can’t seem to think of anybody else as treasurer. He’s a financier,” said Dave, reverently. “He knows all about handling money. Folks trust to him for that.”

“But you say my uncle--”

“Your uncle is doing most of the saying. Folks stand round and listen. I don’t know what he is trying to do to the judge. Nobody seems to know. Guess he can’t do much of anything except talk. You know, yourself, Ross, how he keeps sparked up most of the time. Maybe he don’t know just what he says, himself.”

I began to skirt the edges of conditions in Levant, asking questions about this one and that, showing as much indifference as I could. But the Sortwell boys showed even more indifference about their home town. It was all too familiar to them. They were displaying increasing interest in me, and were emboldened to ask questions, now that their early awe was wearing off.

I found out--and I was rather surprised--that the folks in Levant had not heard a word about me since I left the town. I had rather expected that Dodovah Vose would drop some hint as to what had become of me--and yet, on reflection, I could see that prudence required him to keep still. He had helped a prisoner to escape, and could not well let anybody suspect that he knew the whereabouts of that prisoner.

“I’ll tell you, boys,” I said, when they had flanked me with questions from every approach and had finally and fairly pounced on me to find out what I was doing for a living and how I was so important, “I am hitched up with big business interests who don’t allow their men to talk. I’d tell you if I could tell anybody. It isn’t one special kind of business--it’s all kinds--a sort of a syndicate--a combination. You understand!”

They hastened to say that they did--and I was glad of that because I didn’t understand, myself.

“But you’ll let us say that you’re in this big business, won’t you? When we get back home we want to tell all of ’em that they’d better not slur you any more.”

“I suppose the backbiters have been busy, eh?”

“Oh, not much nowadays except somebody remarks once in a while that you had to skip the town. You know how such things pop up in talk. Your uncle being prominent nowadays, you get mentioned once in a while. But Dodovah Vose has always stood up for you!”

“And a lot of folks didn’t believe what that detective said. He wasn’t a real detective, anyway. He was only a deputy sheriff from Pownal,” added Ardon, and the next minute I felt like hugging the boy. “I was always ashamed of how us fellows put you in bad, Ross, and so I owned up when Celene Kingsley asked me--”

I couldn’t help it! I came right up in my chair. “Celene Kingsley asked you?”

He misunderstood my heat.

“Don’t be mad, Ross! I stood up for you, I say! I was sorry for what I did. I was ashamed.”

“But you said Celene Kingsley asked you something!”

“Well, I can’t remember whether she came right to me and asked me or whether it just happened that the thing came up somewhere or--”

“But you would surely remember if _she_ came to you!” I could not conceive of Celene coming to anybody without it marking a mile-stone in life.

However, the Sortwell boy had plainly decided to be non-committal until he had a better line on my feelings in the affair.

“I don’t want you to be mad because I talked it over, Ross. I stood up for you!”

“But did she come _asking?_”

“We-e-ll, I guess she must have asked--or--or something! Anyway, it came up in talk--somehow--”

Confound his haziness!

“And of course I stood up for you. It was only right! I told her how you tried to bust up the Skokums! I said you threatened to bat out the brains of the whole of us if we didn’t stop cutting-up. I told her that they hadn’t ought to have arrested you that night, for you was trying to stop us from raiding her father’s house to grab that detective. You said something about a home being a castle--or--or something. Anyway, Ross, I did the best I knew how--I ain’t so much good in talk as you are. Honestly, I did the best I could to put you straight when she asked. Yes, I reckon she did ask.”

I was looking at him with such rapturous expression that his face cleared of uncertainty regarding my feelings.