“My boys all play whist,” said the lady, kindly; “but if you do not like to play, I will not urge you. We lack one of making up a party.”
Sandy had been told that he was an uncommonly good player for one so young. He liked the game; there would be no stakes, of course. With his ready habit of making up his mind, he brightly said, “I’ll play if you like, but you must know that I am only a youngster and not a first-rate player.” So they sat down, the lovely lady from Baltimore being Sandy’s partner, and the military gentleman and the young daughter of the lady from Baltimore being their opponents. Sandy had great good luck. The very best cards fell to him continually, and he thought he had never played so well. He caught occasional strains of music from room Number 56, and he was glad that Oscar was enjoying himself. From time to time the lovely 230 lady who was his partner smiled approvingly at him, and once in a while, while the cards were being dealt, she said, “How divinely those dear boys are playing!”
The afternoon sped on delightfully, and Sandy’s spirits rose. He thought it would be fine if the “New Lucy” should stay stuck on a sand-bar for days and days, and he should have such a good game of whist, with the lovely lady from Baltimore for a partner. But the military gentleman grew tired. His luck was very poor, and when the servants began to rattle dishes on the supper-table, he suggested that it would be just as well perhaps if they did not play too much now; they would enjoy the game better later on. They agreed to stop with the next game.
When they had first taken their places at the card-table, the military gentleman had asked Sandy if he had any cards, and when he replied that he had none, the military gentleman, with a very lordly air, sent one of the cabin waiters to the bar for a pack of cards. Now that they were through with the game, Sandy supposed that the military gentleman would put the cards into his pocket and pay for them. Instead of that he said, “Now, my little man, we will saw off to see who shall pay for the cards.”
“Saw off?” asked Sandy, faintly, with a dim notion of what was meant.
“Yes, my lad,” said the military gentleman. 231 “We will play one hand of Old Sledge to see who shall pay for the cards and keep them.”
With a sinking heart, but with a brave face, Sandy took up the cards dealt to him and began to play. It was soon over. Sandy won one point in the hand; the military gentleman had the other three.
“Take care of your cards, my son,” said the military gentleman; “we may want them again. They charge the extravagant price of six bits for them on this boat, and these will last us to St. Louis.”
Six bits! Seventy-five cents! And poor Sandy had only twenty-five cents in his pocket. That silver quarter represented the entire capital of the Boy Settlers from Kansas. Looking up, he saw Charlie regarding him with reproachful eyes from a corner of the saloon. With great carefulness, he gathered up his cards and rose, revolving in his mind the awful problem of paying for seventy-five cents’ worth of cards with twenty-five cents.
“Well, you’ve got yourself into a nice scrape,” tragically whispered Charlie, in his ear, as soon as the two boys were out of earshot of the others. “What are you going to do now? You can spar your way down to St. Louis, but you can’t spar your way with that barkeeper for a pack of cards.”