Old Judge Priest

by Irvin S. Cobb

“Whut you need then is a blood purifier,” mocked the gamester. He pointed a long forefinger toward the drug store across the street. “You'd better go on over yonder to Hinkle's and git him some. I see they're advertisn' a new brand in their window—a dollar a bottle and a cure guaranteed or else you gits your money back. Better invest!”

He showed her his back as he turned to enter the Blue Jug. Pausing halfway through the swinging doors he spoke again, and since he still looked over her head perhaps he did not see the look that had come into her eyes or mark how her hands were clenching and unclenching. Or if he did see these things perhaps he did not care.

“That's all I've got to say to you,” he added, “exceptin' this—I want this here to be the last time you come pesterin' me on the street.”

“It will be,” she said slowly, and her voice was steady although her meagre frame shook. “It's the last time I'm coming to you on the street, Elmer, for what's mine by rights.”

“Then good-day to you.” He disappeared. She turned and went away, walking fast. Her name was Norfleet and she was a widow and alone in the world. Except for her son, who worked at Kattersmith Brothers' brickyards as a helper for twelve dollars and a half a week, she had no kith or kin. She lived mainly by her needle, being a seamstress of sorts.

King Highpockets' establishment was the nearest approach to a gilded gambling hell—to quote a phrase current—that we had. But certainly it was not gilded, although possibly by some it might have been likened to a hell. Under the friendly cover of darkness you ascended a steep flight of creaky wooden steps and when you had reached the first landing you knocked at a locked wooden door. The lock slid back and the door opened a cautious inch or two and a little grinning negro, whose name was Babe Givens, peeped out at you through the opening. If you were the right person, or if you looked as though you might be the right person, Babe Givens opened the door wider and made way for you to enter.

Entering then, you found yourself in a big room furnished most simply with two tables and some chairs and several spittoons upon the floor, and a portable rack for poker checks and a dumbwaiter in a corner—and that was all. There was no safe, the proprietor deeming it the part of safety to carry his cash capital on his person. There was no white-uniformed attendant to bring you wine, should you thirst, and turkey sandwiches, if you hungered while at play. I have read that such as these are provided in all properly conducted gambling hells in the great city, but King Highpockets ran a sure-thing shop, not a restaurant. Drinks, when desired, were paid for in advance, and came from the bar below on the shelf of the creaking dumbwaiter, after Babe Givens had called the order down a tin speaking tube. There were no rugs upon the floor, no pictures against the walls. Except for the decks of cards, opened fresh at each sitting, there was nothing new or bright about the place. The King might move his entire outfit in one two-horse wagon and put no great strain upon the team. He might lose it altogether and be out of pocket not more than seventy-five dollars. In him the utilitarian triumphed above the purely artistic; himself, he was not pretty to look upon.

Of the two tables, one ordinarily was for poker and the other was for craps. The King banked both games, and sometimes took a hand in the poker game if conditions seemed propitious. Whether he played though or whether he didn't, he stood by always to lift a white chip out of each jackpot for a greedy and omnivorous kitty, whose mouth showed as a brassbound slot in the middle of the circular cover of dirty green baize. Trust him to minister to his kitty every pop. She was his pet and he loved her, and he never forgot her and her needs.

This night, though, the poker table lacked for tenants. The pay car had come and had dispensed of its delectable contents and had gone on south, and on this particular night most of the King's guests were railroad men. Railroad men being proverbially fond of quick action and plenty of it, the crap table had been drawn out into the middle of the room and here all activities centred. Here, too, the King presided, making change as occasion demanded cards, opened fresh at each turn.

While he did this his assistant, an alert individual called Grimes—or Jay Bird Grimes, for short—kept track of the swift-travelling dice and of the betting, which like the dice moved from left to right, round and round and round again.