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When patrons won at the gambling-games, they promptly squandered their winnings at the bar and in the theater; when they lost, they cheerfully ignored their ill- fortune. Even the gamblers themselves shared this recklessness, this prodigality; they made much money; nevertheless, they were usually broke. Most of them drank quite as freely as did the customers. This was not a temperance country.
There were men of all grades of society, and all degrees of moral worth, beginning, of course, at a very moderate standard, and descending to the vilest of the vile, which last were in a large majority. There were tipplers, and gamblers, and profane swearers, in abundance; and Uncle Nathan felt, at the bottom of his philanthropic heart, a desire to lead them from their sins.
On seeing him pass out with haggard eyes, colorless lips, and disordered clothing, the servants gathered in the vestibule took him at first for another of those ruined gamblers who not unfrequently left the house with despair in their hearts. "Another fellow who's had bad luck!" they remarked sneeringly to one another. "No doubt about that.
Bob Brownley paused and looked down into the faces of the breathless gamblers with a contempt that was superb. He went on: "Men of Wall Street, it is writ in the books of the ancients that every evil contains within itself a cure or a destroyer.
The red or blue shirt, the nondescript hat, and the high, mud-caked boots of the miner preponderated. Here and there in the crowd, however, stood a man dressed in the height of fashion. There seemed no middle ground. These latter were either the professional gamblers, the lawyers, or the promoters. A trial was in progress, to which all paid deep attention.
'Three Rissaldar majors in three regiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I. They must be well mounted; and one cannot take the horses as in the old days one took women. Well, well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask save at the lance's point. Ugh!
Reade stopped to speak with one of his reliable negroes, whom he found softly strumming a banjo under a tree. "Are there any visitors in camp to-night who shouldn't be here?" asked Tom. "I doan' beliebe so, boss," replied the colored man. "Dem gamblers an' bootleggers ain' done got bail yet, has they, sah?" "I don't believe they have," replied Tom. "There are no others of their kind here, then?"
The two gamblers rushed out of the door, pistols in hand, and the crowd followed, each man talking at the top of his voice, and betting on the chances of the combatants. Suddenly, above all the noise, they heard a cracked soprano voice singing with some unauthorized flatting and sharping: "Another six days' work is done, Another Sabbath is begun.
He had depended upon the fortune of the Jewess. What resource for him now? None. In this condition, like one of the Indian gamblers, when they have lost all, and are ready to run amuck on all who may fall in their way, he this night, late, made his appearance at a club where he expected to find me. Fortunately, I was not there; but a gentleman who was, gave me an account of the scene.
"Well well " Kenelm's confusion was more marked than ever. "Well well " he stammered, "I see him, and I says " "You see him! Where did you see him? Kenelm Parker, I don't believe you was at the postoffice at all. You was at the clubroom, that's where you was. At that clubroom, smokin' and playin' cards with that deprivated crowd of loafers and gamblers. Tell me the truth, now, wasn't you?" Mr.
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