"Nay," said I, "for to me cards have neither meaning nor
continuity; but let us assume that I am going to play.
How would
you and your friends get to work? Would you play a straight
game, or make me drunk, or - well, the fact is, I'm a newspaper
man, and I'd be much obliged if you'd let me know something about
bunco steering."
My blue-eyed friend erected himself into an obelisk of profanity.
He cursed me by his gods - the right and left bower; he even
cursed the very good cigars he had given me. But, the storm
over, he quieted down and explained. I apologized for causing
him to waste an evening, and we spent a very pleasant time
together.
Inaccuracy, provincialism, and a too hasty rushing to
conclusions, were the rocks that he had split on, but he got his
revenge when he said: - "How would I play with you? From all the
poppy-cock Anglice bosh you talked about poker, I'd ha' played a
straight game, and skinned you. I wouldn't have taken the trouble
to make you drunk. You never knew anything of the game, but how
I was mistaken in going to work on you, makes me sick."
He glared at me as though I had done him an injury. To-day I
know how it is that year after year, week after week, the bunco
steerer, who is the confidence trick and the card-sharper man of
other climes, secures his prey. He clavers them over with
flattery as the snake clavers the rabbit. The incident depressed
me because it showed I had left the innocent East far behind and
was come to a country where a man must look out for himself. The
very hotels bristled with notices about keeping my door locked
and depositing my valuables in a safe. The white man in a lump
is bad. Weeping softly for O-Toyo (little I knew then that my
heart was to be torn afresh from my bosom) I fell asleep in the
clanging hotel.
Next morning I had entered upon the deferred inheritance. There
are no princes in America - at least with crowns on their
heads - but a generous-minded member of some royal family received
my letter of introduction. Ere the day closed I was a member of
the two clubs, and booked for many engagements to dinner and
party. Now, this prince, upon whose financial operations be
continual increase, had no reason, nor had the others, his
friends, to put himself out for the sake of one Briton more or
less, but he rested not till he had accomplished all in my behalf
that a mother could think of for her debutante daughter.
Do you know the Bohemian Club of San Francisco? They say its
fame extends over the world. It was created, somewhat on the
lines of the Savage, by men who wrote or drew things, and has
blossomed into most unrepublican luxury. The ruler of the place
is an owl - an owl standing upon a skull and cross-bones, showing
forth grimly the wisdom of the man of letters and the end of his
hopes for immortality. The owl stands on the staircase, a statue
four feet high; is carved in the wood-work, flutters on the
frescoed ceiling, is stamped on the note-paper, and hangs on the
walls. He is an ancient and honorable bird. Under his wing 'twas
my privilege to meet with white men whose lives were not chained
down to routine of toil, who wrote magazine articles instead of
reading them hurriedly in the pauses of office-work, who painted
pictures instead of contenting themselves with cheap etchings
picked up at another man's sale of effects. Mine were all the
rights of social intercourse, craft by craft, that India,
stony-hearted step-mother of collectors, has swindled us out of.
Treading soft carpets and breathing the incense of superior
cigars, I wandered from room to room studying the paintings in
which the members of the club had caricatured themselves, their
associates, and their aims. There was a slick French audacity
about the workmanship of these men of toil unbending that went
straight to the heart of the beholder. And yet it was not
altogether French. A dry grimness of treatment, almost Dutch,
marked the difference. The men painted as they spoke - with
certainty. The club indulges in revelries which it calls
"jinks" - high and low, at intervals - and each of these gatherings
is faithfully portrayed in oils by hands that know their
business. In this club were no amateurs spoiling canvas, because
they fancied they could handle oils without knowledge of shadows
or anatomy - no gentleman of leisure ruining the temper of
publishers and an already ruined market with attempts to write
"because everybody writes something these days."
My hosts were working, or had worked for their daily bread with
pen or paint, and their talk for the most part was of the
shop - shoppy - that is to say, delightful. They extended a large
hand of welcome, and were as brethren, and I did homage to the
owl and listened to their talk. An Indian club about
Christmas-time will yield, if properly worked, an abundant
harvest of queer tales; but at a gathering of Americans from the
uttermost ends of their own continent, the tales are larger,
thicker, more spinous, and even more azure than any Indian
variety. Tales of the war I heard told by an ex-officer of the
South over his evening drink to a colonel of the Northern army,
my introducer, who had served as a trooper in the Northern Horse,
throwing in emendations from time to time. "Tales of the Law,"
which in this country is an amazingly elastic affair, followed
from the lips of a judge. Forgive me for recording one tale that
struck me as new. It may interest the up-country Bar in India.
Once upon a time there was Samuelson, a young lawyer, who feared
not God, neither regarded the Bench.
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