“We’ll go up with you, but we’ll leave you absolutely to yourself,” said Henninger. “Play just as the fancy takes you, but play high and fast. Hit the luck before it turns; that’s the only chance of making anything.”
The Crackerjack’s first floor was occupied by a marble and silver saloon, and above this was the gambling establishment,—an immense, cool, heavily curtained room, with shaded electric lamps above the tables that glittered with their devices in red and black and green and nickel. Overhead a dozen electric fans vibrated noiselessly.
Eight or ten players were standing in a semicircle at the big “crap” table. Each man, as he rolled the dice, snapped his fingers violently in the air and emitted an explosive “Hah!” which is supposed to aid in turning the winning number. Behind the table stood the suave employees of the game. They did not snap their fingers; they made no ejaculations—but they won.
The roulette-table was deserted; it is not a favourite game in the South, and the croupier was lazily spinning the ball to keep up an appearance of activity. Hawke bought twenty-seven dollars’ worth of white checks and settled himself on a stool, while Henninger and Elliott walked over to the crap-table and stood looking on, to leave him entirely open to the promptings of his “vein.”
They heard the sharp, diminuendo whirr of the ball begin, but they did not look around. “Whirr-rr! click!”
“That’s the four of hearts and the second twelve,” said the croupier.
Elliott was astonished to hear a card thus called instead of a number, but Henninger explained in an undertone that, to evade the laws of Tennessee, all the roulette-wheels in the State are marked with the spots of the four suits of cards, up to the nines, instead of the usual thirty-six numbers. This naïve accommodation is supposed to satisfy at once the demands of justice and of sport, though it does not always save a gaming-house from being raided by the police.
They did not know whether Hawke had lost or won, and they did not look, but they heard the rattle of checks, and the whirr recommence. For a time that seemed endless—perhaps it was half an hour—this went on. Henninger and Elliott tried to interest themselves in the fortunes of the crap game. They glanced over the newspapers. They walked restlessly about, smoked, peeped through the curtains at the street, tried to talk, and fell silent at every sound from the table where destiny was being spun out for them at the gay roulette.
Evidently Hawke was not yet wiped out. Was he winning? They did not know; they dared not look, listening to the whiz and click of the wheel, and dreading to see the player return suddenly empty-handed.
Finally the strain became unendurable, and Henninger turned and walked straight to the roulette-table. Elliott followed him, and bit off a half-uttered ejaculation as he caught sight of the board.