Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

It was the old story; a woman, a rival, a quarrel—ostensibly the outcome of a game of cards—the lie, a shot, and my young brother a fugitive. What a monotonous sameness there is in all such stories, to be sure. No one has invented a single new character or a single new situation in the play of passion, through all the ages. What new phases have the romanticists of the world added to human hopes, fears, sentiments, passions and vices in all the centuries? None—and yet the world demands originality of its authors!

It will be seen that I was between two fires, in deciding on my course after graduation—a sense of filial duty to my sorrowing and lonely parents, and a new-born professional ambition. As is usually the case, ambition conquered, and I decided to seek my fortune in new fields, far away from the paternal roof. California was, at that time, by no means a new sensation, but the novelty of the gold craze had not yet worn off. I had no particular ambition to seek my fortune in foreign lands, and as the Pacific coast was to ambitious Americans still the El Dorado of all youthful dreams, I very naturally turned my thoughts in that direction. I was not long in coming to a decision, and after writing my plans to my parents, I made my arrangements to depart for San Francisco.

The choice of routes to California was a very simple matter, for one who was within easy access of the Atlantic sea board. There was no railroad communication with the Pacific coast in those days, hence I was compelled to select from the several ocean routes that which promised to consume the least time. With this idea I embarked at New York City for San Francisco, on a steamer of the Panama line, and, after a pleasant and uneventful voyage, arrived in San Francisco, the portals of promise through which so many hopeful Jasons had passed before me in search of the Golden Fleece.

* * * * *

The San Francisco gambling house was the common ground upon which the flotsam and jetsam of the early cosmopolitan population of the city met. The proprietors of the gambling hells certainly knew human nature thoroughly, judging by the variety of excitement which they provided. Every known game and every variety of liquor distinguished for its vital-reaching propensities, was at the disposal of their patrons, day and night. The boast of the gambling house keeper was, that he had thrown away his front door key the day the house was opened.

When the gambling fever struck the good citizen or unwary visitor from the mines, he could have his choice of a variety of remedies; monte, faro, roulette, poker—anything he pleased, providing he had his “dust” with him.

And do not imagine that the proprietors and dealers of the games were low-browed, ugly ruffians. Smooth, sleek and handsome were the nimble fingered gentry who attended to the wants of the fever-stricken fools who had more ounces in their pockets than in their brain-pans—until the fever was cured, when the loss of balance was in the other direction. Many a college education was wasted—or utilized, if you please—on the dealer’s side of a “sweat-cloth” in some of those dens. My fine gentleman would not swing a pick—unless it were an ivory one with which he could take away a sturdy miner’s golden ounces much more quickly than the hapless fool had dug them with the implements of honest toil.

But the scene was an alluring one, nevertheless. The rattle of chips and dice; the ringing of silver and the clink of gold; the thud of the buckskin bags of gold dust as they were recklessly thrown upon the table; the duller, yet more portentous, shuffling of the cards; the whir of the wheel where rouge et noir was being played, were entertaining to my ear, untrained as it was to such sounds.

“Come up and make your bets, gentlemen! The game is made! Five — eleven — eighteen — twenty — twenty-two — twenty-four — twenty-eight — thirty-one. Red wins!”—and the never ending procession of excited fools stepped up to diversion and disaster.

There was one thing the proprietors of those gambling houses forgot—they should have had a suicide room and an undertaking department. It would have saved the city fathers a deal of trouble in the disposal of the large crop of unknown remains that the morning light disclosed in obscure corners of the city—poor fugitives from self; victims of dens where Venus, Momus, Terpsichore and Bacchus grovelled in the dirt yet held undisputed sway.