"Kind sirs, good night," remarked McCartney, thrusting the bills into his waistcoat pocket and arising from his place. "I must betake me hence. Experience is the only teacher. Let me advise you never to play games of chance with strangers."
The two Germans stared at him stupidly.
"You don't understand? Permit me. You saw the dice were not loaded? Very good! You examined them? Very good again. Your powers of observation are uncultivated, merely. The stern mother of invention—that is to say necessity—has obeyed the law of evolution. Three of the dice in my pocket bear no even numbers. The information is well worth your six dollars. Again, good night."
"Betrüger!" cried the loser of the six dollars, arising heavily and upsetting his beer. "Dot feller skivinded us mit dice geloaded! Sheet! Sheet!"
They blundered toward the side entrance, while McCartney side-stepped into an adjacent portal. Long Acre Square gleamed from end to end. Above him an electric display, momentarily vanishing and reappearing, heralded the attributes of the cigar sacred to the Scottish bard. Peering through the haze generated by the countless lights a few tiny stars repaid diligent search. A scanty number of pedestrians was abroad. The pantheon of delights shone silent save for an occasional clanging car. The Germans passed in search of an officer, excitedly jabbering about the "sheet," their angry expressions reverberating along the concrete, fading gradually into the hum of the lower town.
Then slowly into view crept one of those anachronisms of the metropolis—a huge, shaggy horse slowly stalking northward, dragging a rickety express wagon whereon reposed a semisomnolent yokel. Hitched by its shafts to the tail of the wagon trailed a decrepit brougham (destined, probably, for country-depot service), behind this a debilitated Stanhope buggy, followed by a dogcart, a phaeton, a buckboard, with last of all a hoodless Victoria. This picturesquely mournful procession of vanished respectability staggered hesitatingly past our hero, who regarded it with vast amusement. To his fanciful imagination it appeared like the fleshless vertebræ of a sea serpent slowly writhing into the obscurity of the night. Occasionally one of the component dorsals would strike an inequality in the pavement and start upon a brief frolic of its own, swinging out of line at a tangent until hauled back into place again by the pull of the shaggy horse. Sometimes all started in different directions at one and the same time, and the semblance to a skeleton snake was heightened—even the ominous rattle was not wanting. The Victoria looked restful to McCartney, whose legs were always tired.
"Why should we fret that others ride?
Perhaps dull care sits by their side,
And leaves us foot-men free!"
he hummed to himself, recollecting an old college glee.
"All the same that old bandbox looks not uncomfortable. How long is it since I have used a cushion! Poverty makes a poor bedfellow!"
As the last equipage swung by, McCartney took a few steps in the same direction and clambered in. He had become a "foot-man" in fact, but a very undignified and luxurious one, who lay back with his feet crossed against the box in front of him. Of all the lights on Broadway none glowed so comfortingly for McCartney as the tip of his cigarette.