“Splendid!” she cried, examining the tag and seeing $7.50. Then she passed it round. “Beautiful!” said the women, seeing $7.50.
And the corruption of Euchretown was accomplished.
We pass hastily to the strange fury in its later vigor. From the night of the initiative prize an extraordinary inflation went on apace. Scarcely had a week elapsed (full of gossip at the Stoker’s indubitable success) when Mrs. Wheelock gave a second euchre-party. And when the guests flocked to the banker’s two-story house in the mission style (on the fifty-foot lot which he bought for $1,400 of Jeffreys Sassy), they were yet more morally poisoned to observe, on the cut-glass dish which she awarded to shrieking Mrs. Botts, the half-extinguished price-mark, $9.65.
For six days, $9.65 was a sort of tag to the town’s mental status; when, to the thrilling of all, Mrs. George Botts did suddenly cast out invitations; and at Mrs. Bott’s brilliant affair, Mrs. Stoker, after a dashing race neck-and-neck with six women who all but beat her, won a clock on the bottom of which, mysteriously blurred, the figures $13.75 could, after careful scrutiny, be distinguished.
The value of the prize at the fourth party was $15; at the sixth, $19; at the ninth, $25.50. Agape, the town stared ahead at its coming dizzy course. Then Mrs. Samuel Lethwait, taciturn woman, stupefied the inhabitants of the place by making one flying leap from $25 to $50. Out of the ranks, out of the number of the unfeared had Mrs. Lethwait made her daring rise.
There was an instant’s recoil. Could Mrs. Stoker, Mrs. Wheelock, Mrs. Botts pause now? Their shoulders were at the wheel, their hands on the flying plow which tore up such amazing furrows in the social field. The recoil was but momentary. At the very hour when Mrs. Botts was putting on her hat, sworn to buy a prize worth $60, there fell into her agitated hand an invitation. Mrs. Stoker had sprung to the breach.
A scramble for the cottage of the nine pillars. And behold on the golden lamp there displayed as prize, were the shameless figures, $75.00.
Now had the insanity taken general root. He who fails to understand knows not California. The dangerous mania once contracted, no matter what its form, must continue till the collapse. If the gold fury of ’49, and the equally furious land boom of ’87, are not object-lessons enough, let the sociologist recall the Belgian hares. And if yet he doubts the historical verity of such a cast in the California mind, let him give this euchre boom his careful consideration. As men bid for twenty-five foot lots in San Diego in the insane days of ’87, so did women now bid, under the thin disguise of euchre prizes, for choice positions in the social field of Euchretown. It was the old disease.
In two more leaps the prizes had advanced to a hundred. And, most significant of all, seldom was the price of a prize now paid down. The credit system had saved the day. The people of Euchretown were not millionaires. Few felt able to toss out a hundred with this rapid periodicity. So small first payments, contracts, “the rest in six and twelve,” became the rule.
In the rear dust of this race, panting, tagged Mrs. Hummel. Again and again, contrary to the will of pained Mr. Hummel (who to himself sang “Throw Out the Life Line” in despair), did she attend, punch cards, look on with jealous eye; yet she did not play. She was a buffer whom the sinners held between their gaming and their consciences. Oh, how she longed to give a party that would stagger the general mind!