He went out again and stood upon the platform until the last vestige of Clarksville was passed. He then found a seat in the smoking-room and smoked until almost morning.
"Chicago!" Checkers stood once more upon his native heath. He had come directly from Little Rock, had rented a modest room, and had taken up again the thread of a drifting, devil-may-care existence. Gradually, the constant, active, throbbing pain of his bereavement wore away, and in its stead there came a sullen, morbid sense of the uselessness of all things. He had neither friends nor acquaintances; even Murray Jameson was out of town. He haunted the Fair grounds in the daytime and the theatres at night.
"Excitement and Forgetfulness"—this might have been his watchword.
I feel that if I could have met him at this time instead of almost a year later as I did, I might have brought an active pressure to bear upon him, and saved to him the good that the refining influence of his wife and his Clarksville connections had done him. But, alas! in this busy world there is no such thing as standing still. We either advance or retrograde. The hill is steep to climb, but going down is easy.
Checkers went down; gradually, it is true, but still he went down.
By degrees he met his fellow-roomers in the house—good fellows, all of them, in their way, but worthless. Checkers craved companionship. Often he sat in a poker game all night with them, in some one of their rooms, or "did the Midway" with them, ever "mocking the spirit which could be moved to such a thing," but sometimes finding in it a temporary respite from the bitter, haunting memories of the past.
It would be difficult to follow, and uninteresting to read, the devious windings of Checkers' way during the next few months. Hardened, despondent, and utterly careless; without the restraining influence of worthy friends or home ties to soften and hold him; with money, but no occupation; time, but nothing to do with it—little wonder is it that, after the great White City finally closed its gates, shutting him off from his one simple pleasure, he gradually drifted back to the stirring scenes of his youth—the races and the betting-ring.
The history of every one of the hundreds of thousands of men who have "played the races" may be told in three short words: "They went broke"—sooner or later. Generally sooner than later; but "they went broke."
So it was with Checkers. Good information, careful betting—playing horses for place when he thought they could win; sometimes not risking a cent all day; watching the owners, standing in with the jockeys—all this put him nicely ahead for a while, and staved off the evil day for long. But the eternal law of average will not down, and the percentage in the betting-ring is absurdly against the bettor. A streak of hard luck; a slaughter of the favorites; a plunge; throwing good money after bad; doubling up once or twice; a final coup. Pouf! One afternoon Checkers found himself penniless.