Harrison looked around a moment. “If you’ll show me the books, I think I might look them over now.”
“Books?” said Coughlin, hesitatingly. “There aint any, but I guess you can figure all right in this, perhaps.” He produced a small paper-covered blank book from under the bottle rack. “You’ll find a lead pencil in the drawer any time”; and he bustled over to the faro-bank, satisfied that he had demonstrated his familiarity with the bookkeeping craft. He came back to ask Harrison what wages he was going to work for.
“Anything,” said Harrison. “In New York I got seventy-five dollars a month.”
“That aint much,” said Coughlin. “I never asked any man to take less than three dollars a day and board. You can eat in the restaurant there.” Then he introduced Harrison to Big Joe, the day bartender, telling Joe this was the bookkeeper.
An hour later Joe called Harrison to announce that Red Sheehan had got a drink without paying therefor.
“He never will pay for it, either,” continued the experienced Joe, “but I suppose you’ll put it down in the bookkeeping.”
Harrison seemed a little undecided as to the value of this entry, and his uncertainty settled it, for thereafter Joe never mentioned such items, and as for Coughlin, he continued to dump the uncounted contents of the cash drawer at various times into his pocket, and to pay his debts out of the same receptacle with a total disregard to cash balances, daily receipts, or outstanding accounts, which made Harrison’s methodical hair stand on end.
Occasionally, however, he would ask Harrison how he was getting along, and Harrison, who had debited Red Sheehan’s account with one drink, and who had never had occasion to make a second entry of any kind, generally replied that the work was pretty light.
“That’s all right,” Coughlin would say. “Bookkeepers are mighty handy to have around in case you want to figure some time.”
And so Harrison drew his three dollars a day, and ate in the restaurant, where Blanche usually managed to sit opposite. Then in the evening he sat idle in the Comique, and watched the roulette wheels spin and the cards drop monotonously from the faro-box, heard the metallic call of the dealers and the buzz of the ball in the runaway of the wheel; saw the dancing-girls, in all the glories of scarlet satin, promiscuous affection, and peroxide hair, waltz past; listened to the wandering musicians of the orchestra play some good music and much bad; sat in a chair near the end of the bar, and watched the carnival of sin and revelry around him, and then, about midnight, when he felt entitled to leave, he went back to the lonely cabin, where his wife lay in her changeless sleep, to sit and keep his vigil with her he had loved in life and still adored in death.