Still, this availed him nothing when funds were low. At such times he eschewed Billy Boyle’s and breakfasted meagrely instead at the Cockeyed Bakery just east of Clark. That famous refuge for the temporarily insolvent was so named because of the optical peculiarity of the lady who owned it and who dispensed its coffee and sinkers. This refreshment cost ten cents. The coffee was hot, strong, revivifying; the sinkers crisp and fresh. Every Clark Street gambler was, at one time or another, through the vagaries of Lady Luck, to be found moodily munching the plain fare that made up the limited menu to be had at the Cockeyed Bakery. For that matter lacking even the modest sum required for this sustenance, he knew that there he would be allowed to “throw up a tab” until luck should turn.
Many a morning Gaylord Ravenal, dapper, nonchalant, sartorially exquisite, fared forth at eleven with but fifty cents in the pocket of his excellently tailored pants. Usually, on these occasions, the malacca stick was significantly absent. Of the fifty cents, ten went for the glassy shoeshine; twenty-five for a boutonnière; ten for coffee and sinkers at the Cockeyed Bakery. The remaining five cents stayed in his pocket as a sop to the superstition that no coin breeds no more coins. Stopping first to look in a moment at Weeping Willy Mangler’s, or at Reilly’s pool room for a glance at the racing chart, or to hear a bit of the talk missed through his enforced absence from Boyle’s, he would end at Hankins’ or McDonald’s, there to woo fortune with nothing at all to offer as oblation. But affairs did not reach this pass until after the first year.
It was incredible that Magnolia Ravenal could so soon have adapted herself to the life in which she now moved. Yet it was explicable, perhaps, when one took into consideration her inclusive nature. She was interested, alert, eager—and still in love with Gaylord Ravenal. Her life on the rivers had accustomed her to all that was bizarre in humanity. Queenie and Jo had been as much a part of her existence as Elly and Schultzy. The housewives in the little towns, the Negroes lounging on the wharves, the gamblers in the river-front saloons, the miners of the coal belt, the Northern fruit-pickers, the boatmen, the Southern poor whites, the Louisiana aristocracy, all had passed in fantastic parade before her ambient eyes. And she, too, had marched in a parade, a figure as gorgeous, as colourful as the rest.
Now, in this new life, she accepted everything, enjoyed everything with a naïveté that was, perhaps, her greatest charm. It was, doubtless, the thing that held the roving Ravenal to her. Nothing shocked her; this was her singularly pure and open mind. She brought to this new life an interest and a curiosity as fresh as that which had characterized the little girl who had so eagerly and companionably sat with Mr. Pepper, the pilot, in the bright cosy glass-enclosed pilot house atop the old Creole Belle on that first enchanting trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
To him she had said, “What’s around that bend? . . . Now what’s coming? . . . How deep is it here? . . . What used to be there? . . . What island is that?”
Mr. Pepper, the pilot, had answered her questions amply and with a feeling of satisfaction to himself as he beheld her childish hunger for knowledge being appeased.
Now she said to her husband with equal eagerness: “Who is that stout woman with the pretty yellow-haired girl? What queer eyes they have! . . . What does it mean when it says odds are two to one? . . . Why do they call him Bath House John? . . . Who is that large woman in the victoria, with the lovely sunshade? How rich her dress is, yet it’s plain. Why don’t you introduce me to——Oh! That! Hetty Chilson! Oh! . . . Why do they call him Bad Jimmy Connerton? . . . But why do they call it the Levee? It’s really Clark Street, and no water anywhere near, so why do they call it the Levee? . . . What’s a percentage game? . . . Hieronymus! What a funny word! . . . Mike McDonald? That! Why, he looks like a farmer, doesn’t he? A farmer in his Sunday-best black clothes that don’t fit him. The Boss of the Gamblers. Why do they call his place ‘The Store’? . . . Oh, Gay darling, I wish you wouldn’t. . . . Now don’t frown like that. I just mean I—when I think of Kim, I get scared because, how about Kim—I mean when she grows up? . . . Why are they called owl cars? . . . But I don’t understand why Lipman lets you have money just for a cane that isn’t worth more than ten or twenty . . . How do pawnbrokers . . . Mont Tennes—what a queer name! . . . Al Hankins? Oh, you’re joking now. Really killed by having a folding bed close up on him! Oh, I’ll never again sleep in a . . . Boiler Avenue? . . . Hooley’s Theatre? . . . Cinquevalli? . . . Fanny Davenport? . . . Derby Day? . . . Weber and Fields? . . . Sauterne? . . . Rector’s? . . .”
Quite another world about which to be curious—a world as sordid and colourful and crude and passionate and cruel and rich and varied as that other had been.
It had taken Ravenal little more than a year to dissipate the tidy fortune which had been Magnolia’s share of Captain Andy’s estate, including the Cotton Blossom interest. He had, of course, meant to double the sum—to multiply it many times so that the plump thousands should increase to tens—to hundreds of thousands. Once you had money—a really respectable amount of it—it was simple enough to manipulate that money so as to make it magically produce more and more money.
They had made straight for Chicago, at that period the gamblers’ paradise. When Ravenal announced this step, a little look of panic had come into Magnolia’s eyes. She was reluctant to demur at his plans. It was the thing her mother always had done when her father had proposed a new move. Always Captain Andy’s enthusiasm had suffered the cold douche of Parthy’s disapproval. At the prospect of Chicago, the old haunts, congenial companions, the restaurants, the theatres, the races, Ravenal had been more elated than she had ever seen him. He had become almost loquacious. He could even be charming to Mrs. Hawks, now that he was so nearly free of her. That iron woman had regarded him as her enemy to the last and, in making over to Magnolia the goodish sum of money which was due her, had uttered dire predictions, all of which promptly came true.