The old man turned his back for a moment, while he slyly poured a little water into a whiskey bottle in which the liquor was running low, and then placing it with the other bottles he came out to his favourite seat by the window and sat smoking for some minutes.
“Beats all,” he said, after awhile, “how folks lets go like that. Don’t seem to have no sense o’ religion. The Good Book says, ‘Go to the ant,’ you sluggers. Consider her ways and be wise. Now, there ain’t no p’ints about a ant that’s worth considerin’, ’cept their almighty stick-to-it-iveness. Stands to reason, it means fer us to keep peggin’ away till we git there. ’F Si Walker’d on’y pegged like the ants does, he mought ’a’ been rich an’ respected.
“There was Pete Kenney that dropped off’n a boat here some thirty year ago an’ just stayed. There didn’t seem to be no reason why he should ’a’ come here in the first place, or why he should ’a’ stayed after he arrove, but he did. Some said he must ’a’ dropped on to the boat by accident somewheres up the river, an’ the captain put him off at the first landin’, him not havin’ the regulation fare in his jeans. However ’twas, he come, an’ he remained. More’n that, he’s well fixed now an’ pays taxes.
“There warn’t no reason fer it, fer as anybody could see, ’ceptin’ Pete’s all-fired persistency. He was a bright enough sort o’ man an’ might ’a’ settled down in business fer himself, fer he got a job as bartender down to the hotel an’ made money. They do say as how a steady, industrious bartender in a hotel where there’s a good run o’ business an’ a boss that drinks some himself, can have a saloon of his own in a few years, an’ I reckon it’s pretty near true. I kept bar in a hotel myself when I was young.
“That wa’n’t Pete’s lay, though. Pete used to say that there was one way of establishin’ yourself in life that laid over any other, an’ that was to hold a royal flush in a good stiff game o’ draw-poker. Then, he says, it’s on’y a question o’ how much the others has got to inspire their confidence, an’ how much they has to bet with that fixes the amount to be gathered in, so’s’t a man can retire an’ be respectable fer the rest of his natural life.
“Some on us reasoned with Pete at times about this. We told him that royal flushes was sca’ce game, an’ that four of a kind was good enough fer a careful player to get rich on, but Pete ’lowed that a royal flush was the on’y thing a man could be dead sure of. Seems he’d had four queens beat when he was young, an’ he’d l’arned consid’able caution from th’ experience.
“ ‘As to a royal flush bein’ sca’ce,’ Pete says, ‘it stands to reason that a man’s goin’ to get it sometime, if he plays long enough. Stick to it,’ he says, ‘an’ sooner or later yer goin’ to git a royal flush. The on’y thing needed is to stick to it.’
“Consequences was that Pete, havin’ found his theory of business success, devoted himself to the workin’ on it out, with a persistency that would ’a’ growed wool on a nigger’s heel ’f he’d devoted hisself to that particular form of effort. Why, Pete’d give his nights an’ days to poker. He never allowed business to interfere with a game, long’s he’d money to play with.
“Just naturally his theory of the game interfered with his general success. Mostly it does interfere, I’ve noticed, when a man gets theories in his head an’ plays the game different f’m the ordinary run o’ people. These here sharps that figgers out some particular thing in the game as bein’ a dead certainty, always loses money on it, for you can say what you like about the great American game, but it certainly does beat anything else for the preponderance of uncertainty that has to be calculated on, whenever you have a dead sure thing in your mind—all excepting a royal flush, as Pete used to say with ondeniable wisdom.
“Pete’s mind bein’ fixed, so to speak, on that royal flush, you can see for yourself that it warped his judgment on the question o’ drawin’ cards. Many a time I’ve seen him split a pair of aces, an’ draw three cards to a ace an’ queen, or ace an’ ten o’ the same suit. Once I even seen him split two pairs, aces an’ queens, an’ draw two cards to the ace, queen an’ jack o’ diamonds, an’ Joe Hooker says he seen the blamed ijjit split three kings to draw to three hearts just because they was court cards o’ the same suit. An’ the first card he picked up in the draw was the fourth king. Shows how a man’ll overlook the blessin’s o’ Providence right in his fist, reachin’ out after things he hain’t no reason to hope for in the natural course of events. Stands to reason a man’ll lose money defyin’ fate with such monkey-shines as them.