Chapter XVIII Made His Proposition
The farmers have a saying to illustrate restlessness: “Like a hen on a hot griddle.” And Bodney thought of it the next day, as he sat about the office waiting for the noon hour, for the game did not start before then. He tried to read, but the words were as the echo of a pot that had been played. He attempted to write, but called it a misdeal. How swift was life, viewed from the window, and yet how slow time was, limping, halting, standing still, boulders between minutes and mountains between hours. Surely his watch was slow. No, for a bell confirmed it in its record of the forenoon’s slothfulness. He thought of Goyle, and wondered why he did not come to make his proposition, if it were so important. He went out to walk in the cool air blowing from the lake, and the Wexton stairs arose before him. He rang the bell, and, standing there waiting for the grim face of the porter, reminded himself of an old horse at a stable door. Inside they were cleaning up, sweeping, dusting, getting ready for another day and another night. From off in a bedroom came the snoring of a man who had gone to sleep, drunk and broke; but the porter would bid him a pleasant good-morning and would give him a drink from a bottle kept in ice all night. Bodney sat down at a window and took up a newspaper and glanced at the report of a committee appointed to investigate gambling in Chicago. Numerous witnesses had been summoned, some of them connected with the poker clubs; and in a vague way they admitted under oath that they might have seen men playing cards for money, but could not recall exactly where. “I am looking for a fool,” said the Legislature. “What do you want with him?” the Governor asked. “I want to put him on an investigative committee,” the Legislature replied. “For the city?” the Governor inquired. “Yes,” answered the Legislature. “Then,” said the Governor, “take the first countryman you come to.”
Men with borrowed money burning in their pockets began to arrive, and each one was asked by an earlier comer if he wanted to play poker, and though he had shouldered his way through the crowd to get there, fearing that he might not find a vacant seat, he answered in a hesitating way, “Well, I don’t know; haven’t got much time—might play a little while.” It was a part of the hypocrisy of the game, recognized by all and practiced by all.
The noon meal was munched and the game began. Opposite Bodney sat a man whose liquor lapped over from the previous day. One eye was smaller than the other, and on one cheek, red and flaming, was a white scar. He drew to everything, won from the start and was therefore offensive. Bodney opened a pot on a pair of aces. All passed but the man with the white scar, who said that he would stay. “You are a pretty good fellow,” he remarked to Bodney. “I’ll help you along.” Bodney drew three cards and caught his third ace. The white scar drew two cards. Bodney, to lead him on, bet a chip.
“Well,” said the scar, “I had a pair of sixes and an ace here. I’ll go down now and see if I helped, and I won’t bet you unless I have. Well, I’ll have to raise you three dollars.”
“Raise you three,” said Bodney.
“You must have helped. Still, we never know. Ain’t that so, Jim?”
Jim said that it was so, and the scar, as if pleased and reassured in thus finding his view confirmed, raised Bodney.
It was wrong to take a drunken man’s money; it was robbery, but it was poker, and Bodney raised him.
“Well, you play two pairs pretty hard, and I don’t believe you can beat three sixes. Raise you.” Then Bodney began to study. “I’ll call you,” he said.
“I drew to three little diamonds,” said the fellow, “and caught a flush.” He spread his hand. Bodney swore. “I never played with a drunken man that he didn’t beat me.”
The fellow looked up at him as he raked in the pot. “Have to do it. My pew rent’s due. Ain’t that right, Jim?”
“That’s right,” said Jim.
Bad ran into worse and rounded up in a heap of disaster. At three o’clock, just as the game was getting good, as someone remarked, Bodney went out, feeling in his pockets. This becomes a habit with the poker fool. He continues to search himself long after he has raked up the lint from the bottom of his pockets. In the street the air was stagnant and the sunshine was a mockery. At several places he tried to borrow money, but failed; his former accommodater, the druggist, told him that he had a note to meet and could not spare it. He was sorry, he said. Bodney went out, muttering that he was a liar. He went to the office and found the door locked. Howard was not there, and he could hide himself, the peacock whose tail feathers had been pulled out. But before going into the office he thought of the old doctor across the hall, and hesitated. Perhaps he had money, and, having ruined his mind, might be fool enough to lend it. The doctor was pleased to see him. He was astonished to find Bodney so much interested in his affairs, and he wondered if a spirit of reformation had come upon the youth of the land. Bodney said that of late he had begun to hear much of the old man’s skill as a physician. The old man turned a whitish smile upon him and listened like a gray rat, bristles resembling feelers sticking out on his lip. And after a time Bodney asked if he would be so kind as to lend ten dollars till the following morning? He was sorry, but could not. That part of the mind which takes account of money is the last to suffer from disease.
Bodney went into the office to wait for something, he did not know what. He thought of Bradley, and wondered if he could find him. Just then he discovered the something he had been waiting for. Goyle came in.
“Halloa, old man,” said Goyle. “I went up to the club just now to look for you and they told me that you had gone down stairs.”
“Down stairs broke,” Bodney replied.
“That’s all right,” said Goyle.
“It’s not all right. I’m broke, I tell you; and a man that’s broke is all wrong.”
“He may think so. I’m glad you are broke.” He put his hand on a table, leaned forward, and gazed into Bodney’s eyes.
“Glad,” said Bodney, blinking.
“Yes, glad. It teaches you the need of money. You are forced to shove back your chair, to give your place to a brute standing behind you. You see the deal go on. You are frozen out, but no one cares. That game is life, the affairs of man epitomized; you put in your last chip, you lose, and you have failed in business. A fellow who hasn’t one-tenth the education has succeeded. He stacks up the chips that you have bought, and for consolation he says that chips have no home. Am I right?”
“Yes, you are. But I want to get back into the affairs of man. Let me have ten dollars.”
“Two weeks from now I can give you ten thousand. Listen to me. Wait a moment.” He closed the door, came back, drew a chair in front of Bodney, sat down and leaned forward. “Now, I will submit my proposition.”
“I don’t know that I can entertain any proposition. I am in too desperate a fix to go into any sort of an enterprise. My blood is full of fever. I’ve got this gambling mania on me and I’m tempted to cut my throat. One evening you took me to a supper that was not to cost anything. It has cost everything, all the money I had, my honor, my future, my—”
“That’s rot, George. I introduced you to a supper that gave you experience—real knowledge of the world. You have met men without their dress-coats—you know man as he is and not as he says he is. You were blind and I opened your eyes to the fact that money is not the reward of the honest and industrious. It is the agent of hell, and must be won by means of the devil. You ought to have been a rich man. If there’d been any foresight you would have been. And whose fault was it that the opportunity slipped? Not yours. Now to my plan. Look at me. Child stealing.”
“What!” Bodney exclaimed.
“I have laid my wires. We will steal children and gather in thousands of dollars in reward for restoring them to their parents. Hold on. Look at me. We will steal from the rich, for that is always legitimate. We will have our agents stationed here and there—we will—”
“Infamous scoundrel, I could cut your throat. I wish to God I had.”
“Sit down and listen to me.”
“I won’t sit down. I will stand and look you in the eye, you scoundrel. Don’t put your hand on me. Stand back, or I’ll knock you down.”
Goyle sneered at him. “You can’t hit me. I am your master. Now, listen to me. I am going over into Michigan to establish a—post, I’ll call it. And when I come back, you will join me. I present a plan by which you can get out of all your difficulties, and you turn on me. Is that the way to treat a benefactor? I have settled upon our first enterprise. Every day a nurse and child are at a certain place in Lincoln Park. The father is dead and the mother is rich. The child, I have found from the nurse, is a boy. I am engaged to marry her. While I am walking with her you steal—”
Bodney struck him in the mouth—struck him with all the force of disgrace and despair. He fell and the blood flowed from his mouth. He did not get up; he lay with his head back, and Bodney thought that he saw death in his half-closed eyes. He touched him with his foot and spoke to him, but he did not move. Someone knocked at the door, and without a tremor Bodney opened it, expecting to find Howard. The old doctor stood in the hall. “I am sorry I refused to let you have the money,” he said. “And now, if you assure me that—”
“I am obliged to you,” Bodney broke in, “but I do not need it. I wanted to gamble with it, but I have quit gambling. I have overthrown the evil. Here,” he added, taking the old man’s arm and leading him into the room. “There it lies bleeding,” he said, pointing. “Perhaps it needs your assistance. I must bid you good day.” He walked out, leaving the old man alone with Goyle.
“What are you smiling at?” asked an acquaintance who met him in the street.
“Was I smiling?”
“Yes, like a four-time winner.”
“I am at least a one-time winner,” Bodney replied. He stepped into a drug store to get a cold drink, his friend’s place, he noticed after entering. The druggist came forward and thus spoke to him: “I was sorry after you went out that I didn’t let you have ten dollars. I found that I had more than enough to meet the note. I can let you have it now.”
Bodney shook his head. “No, I thank you—I don’t care for it. I have quit borrowing.”
“I hope you don’t feel offended.”
“Not at all. I am grateful to you for not lending it to me.”
Late in the evening he went back to the office. No one was there, but soon the negro janitor came in and pointed to a damp spot on the floor. “I have washed up the blood where the man fainted and fell,” he said. “The doctor brought him to all right, and there’s a note on the table he left for you.”
Bodney opened the note and read: “I leave for Michigan, and will be back within a few days. I don’t blame you as much as I do myself. I permitted you to break away from me, but you will come back and at last be thankful. Goyle.”