MEXICAN NIGHTS
CHAPTER I
EL COSMOPOLITA
El Cosmopolita is Chihuahua's fashionable gambling hell. It used to be owned by Jacob La Touche—"The Turk"—a fat shambling man, who came to Chihuahua barefooted with a dancing bear twenty-five years ago, and became many times a millionaire. He owned an extravagant residence on the Paseo Bolivar, which was never called anything but "The Palace of Tears," because it was built with the proceeds of the Turk's gambling concessions, which ruined many families. But the wicked old man slunk away with Mercado's retreating Federal army; and when Villa came to Chihuahua he gave "The Palace of Tears" to General Ortega as a Christmas present, and confiscated El Cosmopolita.
Having a few idle pesos from my expense account, we used to frequent El Cosmopolita. Johnny Roberts and I stopped on our way from the hotel to take a few hot Tom-and-Jerries at a Chinese bar, run by a hoary Mongolian named Chee Lee. From there we proceeded to the gaming tables with the leisurely air of Russian Grand Dukes at Monte Carlo.
One entered first a long, low room, lighted with three smoky lanterns, where the roulette game was.
Above the table was a sign which read:
"Please do not get on the roulette table with your feet."
It was a vertical wheel, not a horizontal one, bristling with spikes which caught a flexible steel strip and finally stopped the wheel opposite a number. Each way the table extended twelve feet, always crowded with at least five rows of small boys, peons, and soldiers—excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of small bills on the numbers and colors, and arguing violently over the winnings. Those who lost would set up terrible screams of rage as the croupier raked their money into the drawer, and often the wheel was quiet for three-quarters of an hour while some player, who had lost ten cents, exhausted his vocabulary upon the treasurer, the owner of the place and his ancestors and descendants ten generations each way, and upon God and his family, for allowing such injustice to go unpunished. Finally he would take himself off, muttering ominously: "Á ver! We shall see!" while the others would sympathetically make way for him, murmuring: "Ah! Que mala suerte!"
Near where the croupier sat was a worn place in the cloth with a small ivory button in the center. And when anyone was winning largely at the wheel the croupier would press this little button, which stopped the wheel where he wished, until the winner was discouraged from playing further. This was looked upon as perfectly legitimate by all present, since, carramba!, there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a loss!