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I tried it out on the new wheel down at Sharkey's and the seventeen system worked like a trick. I won big the first and second nights, Renie you remember the night I brought you and ma the bracelets? I paid back the hundred the first week, Renie; and no one knew no one knew." "Oh-h-h-h!"
For a long time the barque and the brig never met, which was the more singular as the Ruffling Harry was for ever looking in at Sharkey's resorts; but at last one day, when she was passing down the inlet of Coxon's Hole, at the east end of Cuba, with the intention of careening, there was the Happy Delivery, with her blocks and tackle-falls already rigged for the same purpose.
"Aw, Mr. Blaney! Ain't you killing!" She hurried down the room, laughing. At Sharkey's on Saturday night the entire basement café and dance hall assumed a hebdomadal air of expectancy; extra marble-topped tables were crowded about the polished square of dancing space; the odor of hops and sawdust and cookery hung in visible mists over the bar.
As he looked at their grotesque figures he struck his brow with his clenched fist to be sure that he was awake. The deck seemed to be much dirtier than when he had left it, and there were strange, sun-blackened faces turned upon him from every side. Not one of them did he know save only Joshua Hird. Had the ship been captured in his absence? Were these Sharkey's men who were around him?
A woman whose shame was gone acquired a sudden hysteria at her lone table over her milky-green drink, and a waiter hustled her out none too gently. In the foyer at seven o'clock Sara Juke met Charley Chubb, and he slid up quite frankly behind her and kissed her on the lips. At Sharkey's a miss is as good as her kiss! "You you quit! You mustn't!"
We saw the garlanded and mirrored core of "Sharkey's" saloon, of which the most interesting phenomenon was a male pianist who would play the piano without stopping till 2.30 A.M. With about two thousand other persons, we had the privilege of shaking hands with Sharkey. We saw another saloon, frequented by murderers who resembled shop assistants.
Far to the south-east the low blue hills of Hispaniola showed up on the skyline. Hour by hour as he waited without avail, Sharkey's savage temper had risen, for his arrogant spirit chafed against any contradiction, even from Fate itself.
All over it was a white fluffy dust, like the flour of a new-baked loaf. It lay thick on Sharkey's neck and cheek. With a cry of disgust he flung the woman from his lap; but in an instant, with a wild-cat bound, and a scream of triumphant malice, she had sprung at the surgeon, who vanished yelling under the table.
"Captain Sharkey," said he, "it would be an ill deed to speak you false. The taint is on you. No man on whom the leper scales have rested is ever clean again." Sharkey's head fell forward on his chest, and he sat motionless, stricken by this great and sudden horror, looking with his smouldering eyes into his fearsome future.
Had he done so he would have found it empty five minutes after he had lost his money. The millionaires were already streaming hilariously into Sharkey's. "Gates" pledged "Belmont" and "Keene" pledged "Whitney." Each had earned five dollars by the sweat of his brow. The glorious army of wire-tappers had won another victory and their generals had consummated a campaign of months. Receipts, $50,000.
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