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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. PRESTON]

"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 pa.s.s to the Harlem track--one Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sion 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 sc.u.m 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 protege was a much more difficult matter than I had at first imagined. I spoke to a dozen different people. Most of them a.s.sured 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 d.i.c.kens. 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.mping 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 G.o.d-forsaken little place? He might have borrowed some money from Kendall, and stayed at the Springs and recouped.