"Don't believe it," he said. "In the first place I never have chips to lend, and in the second place I wouldn't take a chance on this guy. I don't mind holding two deuces, but two I.O.U.'s of Marks' are too many for my job."
"Shut up and decorate," growled Brower, who, Evan immediately discovered, was the unhappy possessor of the four, five, six and seven of diamonds and the eight of clubs.
Marks tried a bluff and Levison called it.
"You're too industrious," cried the other C man "this bunch relinquishes its Angora only once a night."
Evan laughed, and felt his fingers itch for a draw. Instead of asking for a hand, though, he took a letter from his pocket and wrote on the back of it something for memorization. Then he told the boys he had not yet eaten supper, and they excused him with good-natured remarks. After indulging in a sandwich, a small bowl of rice-custard, and two slices of brown bread, he went up to the boarding-house. As Robb was not in, he was obliged to entertain himself. He hit on the form of entertainment uppermost in his mind—cards. He took the memorandum he had written above the bank, and dealing out a poker hand to four imaginary players and himself, proceeded to create flushes and other combinations. He was unfair in his playing, however, as he looked at each man's hand and selected cards from it instead of the pack. In this way he managed to deal himself a royal flush three times in fifty minutes. The exercise was tiring, though, and he leaned back in his chair. In that restful attitude a lethargy came upon him, and he day-dreamed about poker.
It was a game of science and chance, but were not all other games also dependent upon science and chance—even to a game of ball? There was something in what Levison had said: in going to the Island one did buy the chance of having a good time. And as to the selfishness of the game, did not the boys want him to join them? If they were going to lose by having him with them it was not likely they would invite him. As far as his own possible losses were concerned, Evan had seen enough to feel sure he would break about even. Thus he would have all the fun for nothing, and would be one among the other fellows. Being without the money to participate much in a city's recreation, he welcomed the opportunity of getting something for nothing, which it seemed he would do in an odd game of poker at one penny ante.
The strain of daily work was severe; one could not think of spending the evenings with a book—that was too much like more work. What one needed was something with many laughs, a few cigarettes, and the company of other bankclerks. But where did bankclerks, on salaries varying from $300 to $800, congregate? At clubs? In the drawing-rooms of society? Under the white lights of theatre facades? No—in a shabby, lonely room somewhere, where a nickel looked like two bits. That was where one must go to be among them, and to be one among them he must buy, with his spare pennies, the chances of pleasure they bought.
Evan's dreaming was bringing him near the dividing-line between sense and nonsense. But what, O Employer of Labor, determined the trend of his dreams? If he had been able to take an occasional trip up to Hometon, only three hours' journey, would he have lain awake nights devising means of filling up the dreary evenings? If he had even been able to take a friend out to the theatre occasionally, those cool spring nights, without borrowing the money, would penny poker have so interested him? But you will not listen, Mr. Employer. You say: "If we raise him $200 instead of $100, he will only spend it anyway!" If your Maker had given you one hand instead of two, because of the possibility of your doing more harm with two than one, would you not doubt His wisdom, to say nothing of justice or mercy? What if the bankclerk does spend all he makes—who made you his guardian? You are his employer, not his father or mother. If he can earn $1,000 a year after three years' service (and in the Star Weekly, Toronto, summer of 1912, a Canadian Bank official declared that a bankclerk was no good unless he could) what right have you to give him only $500 or $600?
Evan dreamed of amusing himself, until sleep came; sleep, almost the only inexpensive and valuable amusement some people get. Next morning he awakened in a sporting frame of mind, and went to work somewhat buoyant for having strangled an awkward scruple.
"Are you going to play again to-night?" he asked the paying-teller.