CHAPTER XIV.
POKER AND PREACHING.
A night or two after "Sam's souse," as the staff called it, four of the boys came back to the office and found Evan working, as usual, on the cash-book.
"Still at it?" asked Levison, the paying teller.
"Just struck a balance," replied Nelson.
"Good," said the teller, "we want another man to take a hand in poker. Come up when you're through."
"I don't know how to play," said Evan.
"You'll soon learn."
"I don't think I want to learn."
Sid grinned and Brower, the ledgerman, called:
"Aw, Nelsy, be a sport; we need some of this outside money."
The boys laughed in chorus and trooped through the office in the direction of the back stairway. There were rooms for juniors above the bank, and one of these was the party's destination.
"We'll look for you, kid," whispered Marks in passing the cash-book desk.
Nelson did not reply. He did not like to refuse the boys; besides, he was curious to know just how they acted in a game of poker, and he wanted a little cheap diversion. When his cash-book was ruled up for the following day he locked the vault, and saying to himself that he would just have a look-in for sociability's sake, went upstairs.
The four players were seated at a round table on which were five heaps of matches, one in the centre of the table and one at the elbow of each man. Evan sneaked in quietly and had learned something about poker before he was noticed. Several mysteries, including that attaching to the name "pot," had been solved in his mind before Levison felt the presence of an intruder and turned around with:
"Hello, Nelsy, come right in. Did you bring a little of that outside money?"
Evan smiled.
"I don't even know how to spell money," he said.
"All the more reason why you should take a hand," chimed in Brower. "I was broke the night before last, and now I've got three dollars and seventy-five cents, and am specializing in velvet."
"What's velvet?" asked Evan.
"This here," said three of the boys together, indicating reserve heaps of matches.
"And how much does each match stand for?" continued Nelson.
"We're playing penny," answered Levison, "with a nickel limit. That means fairly small losses for each man and a pretty good clean-up for the winner, with five playing."
"Have you been only two nights making three dollars and six bits?" Evan asked Brower.
"Yes," was the reply, "that's more than I can make in two days in the bank."
"Of course," observed Marks, "when you get a bean for a day's work you make it out of the bank, but this night-pay comes out of us. A slight difference, to use the words of a—"
"Come on," interrupted Brower, "ante and get the game a-going again."
"Sure," said Levison, turning away from the cash-book man.
Evan was coaxed no further, but stayed behind the boys and watched their plays. By and by he asked the teller about certain cards.
"Just a minute and I'll show you," said Sid. "Raise you five—pay me—ace high!"
"By Jupiter," grumbled Marks, "my heap looks like the Farmers Bank clearing."
"See," smiled the teller, while the others enjoyed Marks' ill-luck rather than his joke, "I made enough that time to retrieve half an hour's losses."
Evan looked across at the C man.
"How about Marks, though?" he asked, half-seriously.
"Don't worry about muh," cried Marks, "I see a 'straight' coming this time."
The C man laughed so hard and colored so quickly on seeing his hand that the other boys gaped at him and played carefully. He finally bluffed them out with a pair.
In the laughter and uproar that followed, Evan was studious. He had seen through the play, of course; but the excitement rather than the humor of it appealed to him. Here, he said within himself, was entertainment, company and economy combined. None of the boys were losing much, could lose much, and the pleasure they took out of it was surprising. Still, Evan was not fond of the idea of taking the smallest sum from his companions. He knew how hard they worked for it.
"Well, what about it?" asked the teller, suddenly, looking up at Nelson.
"I'm afraid I'd clean up on you fellows if I started," said Evan. "I think I'd be tempted to hand back my winnings at the end of each game."
Marks laughed and the others smiled.
"Don't consider us," said Brower, "if you want to play and pay for the fun you get, go to it; that's all we're in it for—just the sport."
"But it's gambling," protested Evan.
"So is going to the Island," observed Levison. "Maybe you'll have a good time and maybe you won't, but you pay your money just the same."
The sophisticated argument amused Evan, and helped him believe the boys were in their moderate little game only for amusement, cheap amusement. They could not afford to take girls out often or even go out alone, so they had invented an economic substitute for out-door pleasure. They were trying to take him in with them in their penny-saving pursuit and he wondered if their company were not worth the mental effort it cost him to surrender certain ideas about playing cards for money. In this state of mind he watched the game proceed.
For half an hour longer he stood behind their chairs, studying hands and trying to figure out the percentage of chance against each man. At the end of the time he was surprised to see all their reserves just about even, as they had been at first. Levison saw him intent upon the game.
"You see, Nelsy," he said, expectorating the stub of a cigar, "it's fair to every man. Occasionally somebody has a run of luck, like Brower had last night, and it's worth losing a little to see that happen; but usually we end up pretty much as we started."
"Except me," said Marks; "I just borrowed these chips from Cantel."
Until now Cantel had been silent, bent on earning the price of two theatre tickets for the coming Saturday night; but Marks' words roused him.
"Don't believe it," he said. "In the first place I never have chips to lend, and in the second place I wouldn't take a chance on this guy. I don't mind holding two deuces, but two I.O.U.'s of Marks' are too many for my job."
"Shut up and decorate," growled Brower, who, Evan immediately discovered, was the unhappy possessor of the four, five, six and seven of diamonds and the eight of clubs.
Marks tried a bluff and Levison called it.
"You're too industrious," cried the other C man "this bunch relinquishes its Angora only once a night."
Evan laughed, and felt his fingers itch for a draw. Instead of asking for a hand, though, he took a letter from his pocket and wrote on the back of it something for memorization. Then he told the boys he had not yet eaten supper, and they excused him with good-natured remarks. After indulging in a sandwich, a small bowl of rice-custard, and two slices of brown bread, he went up to the boarding-house. As Robb was not in, he was obliged to entertain himself. He hit on the form of entertainment uppermost in his mind—cards. He took the memorandum he had written above the bank, and dealing out a poker hand to four imaginary players and himself, proceeded to create flushes and other combinations. He was unfair in his playing, however, as he looked at each man's hand and selected cards from it instead of the pack. In this way he managed to deal himself a royal flush three times in fifty minutes. The exercise was tiring, though, and he leaned back in his chair. In that restful attitude a lethargy came upon him, and he day-dreamed about poker.
It was a game of science and chance, but were not all other games also dependent upon science and chance—even to a game of ball? There was something in what Levison had said: in going to the Island one did buy the chance of having a good time. And as to the selfishness of the game, did not the boys want him to join them? If they were going to lose by having him with them it was not likely they would invite him. As far as his own possible losses were concerned, Evan had seen enough to feel sure he would break about even. Thus he would have all the fun for nothing, and would be one among the other fellows. Being without the money to participate much in a city's recreation, he welcomed the opportunity of getting something for nothing, which it seemed he would do in an odd game of poker at one penny ante.
The strain of daily work was severe; one could not think of spending the evenings with a book—that was too much like more work. What one needed was something with many laughs, a few cigarettes, and the company of other bankclerks. But where did bankclerks, on salaries varying from $300 to $800, congregate? At clubs? In the drawing-rooms of society? Under the white lights of theatre facades? No—in a shabby, lonely room somewhere, where a nickel looked like two bits. That was where one must go to be among them, and to be one among them he must buy, with his spare pennies, the chances of pleasure they bought.
Evan's dreaming was bringing him near the dividing-line between sense and nonsense. But what, O Employer of Labor, determined the trend of his dreams? If he had been able to take an occasional trip up to Hometon, only three hours' journey, would he have lain awake nights devising means of filling up the dreary evenings? If he had even been able to take a friend out to the theatre occasionally, those cool spring nights, without borrowing the money, would penny poker have so interested him? But you will not listen, Mr. Employer. You say: "If we raise him $200 instead of $100, he will only spend it anyway!" If your Maker had given you one hand instead of two, because of the possibility of your doing more harm with two than one, would you not doubt His wisdom, to say nothing of justice or mercy? What if the bankclerk does spend all he makes—who made you his guardian? You are his employer, not his father or mother. If he can earn $1,000 a year after three years' service (and in the Star Weekly, Toronto, summer of 1912, a Canadian Bank official declared that a bankclerk was no good unless he could) what right have you to give him only $500 or $600?
Evan dreamed of amusing himself, until sleep came; sleep, almost the only inexpensive and valuable amusement some people get. Next morning he awakened in a sporting frame of mind, and went to work somewhat buoyant for having strangled an awkward scruple.
"Are you going to play again to-night?" he asked the paying-teller.
"Sure," said Levison, "but we've got five already. Bill Watson is coming. I don't think the fellows care for a six-handed game."
Evan did not notice the smile on Sid's face. He went back to his cash-book with the intention of coaxing his way into the evening's game. By and by Brower came along from the accountant's desk.
"Say, Nelsy," he whispered over the cash-book, "Marks got a sure tip from the races through his uncle to-day, and we're all going in on it. It's all right, believe me. He gave us one at the last races and we all made a five to one clean-up. This is a ten to one, sure. If you've got a dollar to throw away give it to Marks."
"I haven't got any to throw away," replied Nelson, annoyed that on top of his recent surrender to poker someone should try to coax him into playing the races.
"Oh, very well," laughed the ledgerman, "no harm done."
Evan made a sudden resolution that he not only would not bet with them that day but that he would pass up the poker game that night: it would show them that he had a mind of his own, even though he did want to be sociable. However, late in the afternoon he began to wonder what he would do in the evening. He almost wished the cash book would not balance before nine or ten o'clock.
Nevertheless, and strange to relate, about six o'clock the big red-backed book did balance. No one was around to hear Evan exclaim: "A first shot!"
He was washing his hands at the tap when a key turned in the front door and Cantel came running in.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" he shouted, "we're all rich."
Evan asked him if he had gone crazy.
"No," replied Cantel, "but Levison has. He bet ten dollars and cleaned up a hundred. The rest of us made from ten to thirty. Here, Nelsy, here's your ten bucks."
The cash-book man laughed ironically.
"You certainly have gone nutty," he said, wiping his hands on the towel. "I didn't bet anything."
"Listen here," said Cantel, "this is the dollar I owed you. Brower told me you wouldn't bet, and we were so danged sure of cleaning up that I decided to place your bet myself. I made twenty on my own account."
Evan was struck with the sporting generosity of his fellow clerk, but could only decline the money.
"That's going too far, Cant," he said.
Cantel began to swear and continued swearing until several other clerks had clattered down through the office, whooping and laughing. Watson was almost fizzing with gin and lemon. Levison, too, walked with a slant. They gathered around Nelson, telling him what a good cash-book man he was and what a fool for not getting in on some of their "outside money."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Evan at last, "I'll take the dollar out that Cantel owes me and stake you the other nine on a poker game, providing you do not ask me to play."
"You f-foolish f-fellow," stammered Watson.
"Wh-what's s'matter?" asked Sid, thickly, "weren't you asking s'morning about a game?"
"I want to see how it's done once more before playing," parried Evan, who was in reality beginning to hanker after the game. It would, he figured, be almost as much fun looking on as playing—one night longer, anyway.
Upstairs in the little room five reserves and a pot stood before Nelson's eyes. The boys had been playing half an hour. Levison, drunk and reckless because of the day's winnings, bluffed out three jacks with a pair of kings and laughed until he nearly choked. Watson, too, played recklessly, but was singularly lucky. After three successful plays Bill exclaimed:
"Let's raise the limit; I'm sick of this monotony."
"I'm game," laughed Levison.
"Naw!" cried Cantel, who had been losing.
"Come on, be a sport," said Brower and Marks in different phrasing.
"Not for mine," replied Cantel; "I quit the game. Maybe Nelsy will sit in a few hands."
"Sure he will," said Marks, "there's class to him. He's a sport or he never would have thrown away nine bucks on millionaires like us. Come on, Nelson, get in the game."
"Yes, come on," coaxed Levison, in syllables impossible to write, "and if you lose too much we'll give you back something from the pot. It's only for fun—we want your company."
Without taking into consideration the raising of the limit, for the reason that he knew he would not need to bet, and figuring that he could play merely for the fun of it a while at penny losses, Evan gave in at length.
"Well, I'll try it," he said, ashamed of his stubbornness, "just for sport."
As luck would have it he raked in a few pots right on the start; then came odd losses and another succession of gains. His success seemed to please rather than tease the other boys, and, to repay them for their consideration, Evan decided it was up to him to make a few bets. He played rather recklessly after a couple of good winnings, saying to himself that the game was going to be short-lived; and his recklessness brought him luck.
How the time flew! Evan looked at his watch and could not believe his eyes—it was ten minutes to ten. He mentioned the fact to the boys.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Watson, "I must go down and have a swig before the bars close. Come on, Sid."
In a few minutes the two tipplers returned with what Bill declared to be a "full house"—three bottles of beer and two flasks of whiskey. Evan was sorry to see the stuff brought in and told them so.
"Now don't be too hard on us, Nelsy," pleaded Watson, in a drunkenly comical tone, "we won't ask you to drink."
"No, shir-ee," said Sid, "Nelz all right. Good sport."
Flattered in spite of himself, his blood warming up, Evan played on, and tolerated the drinks. Toward the close of the game he proceeded carefully, however, not that he intended to keep the money he had gained and use it for clothes or board, but that he might hold it over for other nights and prolong this newly-found form of amusement! He swore to himself, and told the boys, that when the money he had gained was spent he would not play any more, because he was beginning to see that some of the fellows might lose more than their salaries could afford. This was a special night, and they didn't notice it much, but as a precedent, and so forth, excuses and arguments ad infinitum.
Evan might have been able to stop after losing the sum he had gained, and he might not. Some bankboys had turned away from the exciting pastimes of the majority, to find what pleasure they could in walking the streets and patronizing the picture shows, but whether Evan would have been able to do it or not is not for this story to decide. He was not destined to remain in the bank, to suffer through the years its impositions; he was not going to be saddled with the responsibility of choosing between hopeless monotony and a life of blind recklessness. That miserable lot was for others, whom Nelson would some day assist in throwing off the yoke.
Sid Levison, now thirty years of age and drawing $1,100 a year, had made resolutions like Evan's, believing himself to be stronger than circumstances. He had started off in the bank with just as high ideals as Nelson's, and with a sweetheart just as true as Frankie; but years of disappointment had crushed both his hopes and his ideals, until now he lived for the petty and illusive pleasures of the moment; drink, gambling, and other demoralizing "recreations."
Sid Levison, and other bankclerks like him, were abandoned to a life of waste because they had never been given a fair chance. Had they been honestly paid for service in the early years of their banking life they might have spent, at first, all of their salary and done considerable mischief to themselves and others, but when they came out of their youthful nightmare the future would not have been blank and lustreless—as it often is to Sid Levisons, as matters stand. They open their eyes for a moment to the impossibilities of their situation, and close them again with a sigh or an oath, hating the light of common day, so cold and blinding in comparison with the witching glow of midnight flame.
Bill Watson and those other young poker-players were following in the way of their paying-teller, innocently, naturally. Every day they are following in that way, and the bank is perfectly willing that they should. Does not a man become dependent upon the bank in proportion as he loses his own self-dependence, and in proportion as a man is dependent upon his employer is he not subject to the whims of that employer?
The public often wonders about bankclerks, and about other office-men, too, in fact. Why don't they settle down at a reasonable age and do their part toward building up a nation? Young men in their teens are expected to be silly, but when a man of thirty is still a waster he becomes an enigma.
"What's the matter?" people ask; "where lies the origin of the trouble?"
"In human nature," the capitalist answers. That is the answer that pleases and excuses him. But is it true and sufficient?
Those whom fortune has favored may, until the day of doom, invent sophisms to veil their selfishness, but they cannot get rid of the obligations resting upon them—without discharging them.
When those obligations are ignored injustice is wrought, and oftimes the result is crime.