Jim said that it was so, and the scar, as if pleased and reassured in thus finding his view confirmed, raised Bodney.
It was wrong to take a drunken man's money; it was robbery, but it was poker, and Bodney raised him.
"Well, you play two pairs pretty hard, and I don't believe you can beat three sixes. Raise you." Then Bodney began to study. "I'll call you," he said.
"I drew to three little diamonds," said the fellow, "and caught a flush." He spread his hand. Bodney swore. "I never played with a drunken man that he didn't beat me."
The fellow looked up at him as he raked in the pot. "Have to do it. My pew rent's due. Ain't that right, Jim?"
"That's right," said Jim.
Bad ran into worse and rounded up in a heap of disaster. At three o'clock, just as the game was getting good, as someone remarked, Bodney went out, feeling in his pockets. This becomes a habit with the poker fool. He continues to search himself long after he has raked up the lint from the bottom of his pockets. In the street the air was stagnant and the sunshine was a mockery. At several places he tried to borrow money, but failed; his former accommodater, the druggist, told him that he had a note to meet and could not spare it. He was sorry, he said. Bodney went out, muttering that he was a liar. He went to the office and found the door locked. Howard was not there, and he could hide himself, the peacock whose tail feathers had been pulled out. But before going into the office he thought of the old doctor across the hall, and hesitated. Perhaps he had money, and, having ruined his mind, might be fool enough to lend it. The doctor was pleased to see him. He was astonished to find Bodney so much interested in his affairs, and he wondered if a spirit of reformation had come upon the youth of the land. Bodney said that of late he had begun to hear much of the old man's skill as a physician. The old man turned a whitish smile upon him and listened like a gray rat, bristles resembling feelers sticking out on his lip. And after a time Bodney asked if he would be so kind as to lend ten dollars till the following morning? He was sorry, but could not. That part of the mind which takes account of money is the last to suffer from disease.
Bodney went into the office to wait for something, he did not know what. He thought of Bradley, and wondered if he could find him. Just then he discovered the something he had been waiting for. Goyle came in.
"Halloa, old man," said Goyle. "I went up to the club just now to look for you and they told me that you had gone down stairs."
"Down stairs broke," Bodney replied.