Samuel Merwin - In Red and Gold

“These fall breezes are pretty sharp on the river,” he said. “But say, maybe it isn’t hot in summer.”

“I suppose it is,” murmured Miss Andrews.

“I’ve been out here a couple of times with the pater. You’ll find the river interesting. Oh, not down here” – he indicated the wide expanse of muddy water and the low-lying, distant shore – “but beyond Chinkiang and Nanking, where it’s narrower. Lots of quaint sights. The ports are really fascinating. We stop a lot, you know. At Wuhu the water beggars come out in tubs.”

“In tubs!” breathed Miss Andrews.

Miss Means joined them then, book under arm; and met his offer to tuck her up with a crisply pointed, “No, thank you!”

He soon drifted away.

Said Miss Andrews: “Weren’t you a little hard on him, Gerty?”

“My dear,” replied Miss Means severely – her Puritan vein strongly uppermost – “that young man won’t do. Not at all. I saw him myself, one night at the Astor House, going into one of those private dining-rooms with a woman who – well, her character, or lack of it, was unmistakable!.. Right there in the hotel… under his father’s eyes. That’s what too much money will do to a young man, if you ask; me!”

“Oh…!” breathed Miss Andrews, looking out with startled eyes at the gulls.

It was mid-afternoon when Captain Benjamin remarked to his first mate: “Tex Connor’s got down to work, Mr. Duane. Better try to stop it, if you don’t mind. They’re in young Kane’s cabin – sixteen.”

Number sixteen was the last cabin aft in the port side, next the canvas screen that separated upper class white from upper class yellow. The wooden shutters had been drawn over the windows and the light turned on within. Cigarette smoke drifted thickly out.

They were slow to open. Doane heard the not unfamiliar voice of the Manila Kid advising against it. He had to knock repeatedly. They were crowded together in the narrow space between berth and couch, a board across their knees – Connor twisting his head to fix his one eye on the intruder, the Kid, in his check suit, a German of the customs and Rocky Kane. There were cards, chips and a heap of money in American and English notes and gold.

“What is it?” cried Kane. “What do you want?”

“You’d better stop this,” said the mate quietly.

“Oh, come, we’re just having a friendly game! What right have you to break into a private room, anyway?”

The mate, stooping within the doorway, took the boy in with thoughtful eyes, but did not reply directly.

Connor, with another look upward, picked up the cards, and with the uncanny mental quickness of a practised croupier redistributed the heap of money to its original owners, and squeezed out without a word, the mate moving aside for him. The German left sulkily. The Kid snapped his fingers in disgust, and followed.

Doane was moving away when the Kid caught his elbow. He asked: “Did Benjamin send you around?”

Doane inclined his head.

“Running things with a pretty high hand, you and him!”

“Keep away from that boy,” was the quiet reply.

The thin man looked up at the grave strong face above the massive shoulders; hesitated; walked away. The mate was again about to leave when young Kane spoke. He was in the doorway now, leaning there, hands in pockets, his eyes blazing with indignation and injured pride.

“Those men were my guests!” he cried.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kane, to disturb your private affairs, but – ”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“The captain will not allow Tex Connor to play cards on this boat. At least, not without a fair warning.”

The boy’s face pictured the confusion in his mind, as he wavered from anger through surprise into youthful curiosity.

“Oh…” he murmured. “Oh… so that’s Tex Connor.”

“Yes. And Jim Watson with him. He was cashiered from the army in the Philippines. He is generally known now, along the coast, as the Manila Kid.”

“So that’s Tex Connor!.. He managed the North End Sporting in London, three years ago.”

“Very likely. I believe he is known in London and Paris.”

“He’s a professional gambler, then?”

“I am not undertaking to characterize him. But if you would accept a word of advice – ”

“I haven’t asked for it, that I’m aware of.” An instant after he had said this, the boy’s face changed. He looked up at the immense frame of the man before him, and into the grave face. The warm color came into his own. “Oh, I’m sorry!” he cried. “I needn’t have said that.” But confusion still lay behind that immature face. The very presence of this big man affected him to a degree wholly out of keeping with the fellow’s station in life, as he saw it. But he needn’t have been rude. “Look here, are you going to say anything to my father?”

“Certainly not.”

“Will the captain?”

“You will have to ask him yourself. Though you could hardly expect to keep it from him long, at this rate.”

“Well – he’s so busy! He shuts himself up all day with Braker, his secretary. The chap with the big spectacles. You see” – Kane laughed self-consciously; a naively boyish quality in him, kept him talking more eagerly than he knew – “the pater’s reached the stage when he feels he ought to put himself right before the world. I guess he’s been a great old pirate, the pater – you know, wrecking railroads and grabbing banks and going into combinations. Though it’s just what all the others have done. From what I’ve heard about some of them – friends of ours, too! – you have to, nowadays, in business. No place for little men or soft men. It’s a two-fisted game. This fellow spent a couple of years writing the pater’s autobiography: – seems funny, doesn’t it! – and they’re going over it together on this trip. That’s why Braker came along; there’s no time at home. The original plan was to have Braker tutor me. That was when I broke out of college. But, lord!..”

“You’ll excuse me now,” said the mate.

Meantime the Manila Kid had sidled up to the captain.

“Say, Cap,” he observed cautiously, “wha’d you come down on Tex like that for?”

“Oh, come,” replied the captain testily, not turning, “don’t bother me!”

“But what you expect us to do all this time on the river – play jackstraws?”

“I don’t care what you do! Some trips they get up deck games.”

“Deck games!” The Kid sniffed.

“You’ll find plenty to read in the library”

“Read!..”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to stand it.”

For some time they stood side by side without speaking; the captain eying the river, the Kid moodily observing water buffalo bathing near the bank.

“Tex has got that Chinese heavyweight of his aboard – down below.”

“Oh – that Tom Sung?”

“Yep. Knocked out Bull Kennedy in three rounds at the Shanghai Sporting. Got some matches for him up at Peking and Tientsin. Taking him over to Japan after that. There’s an American marine that’s cleaned up three ships’.” He was silent for a space; then added: “I suppose, now, if we was to arrange a little boxing entertainment, you wouldn’t stand for that either, eh?”

“Oh, that’s all right. Take the social hall if the ladies don’t object. But who would you put up against him?”

“Well – if we could find a young fellow on board, Tex could tell Tom to go light.”

“You might ask Mr. Doane. He complains he ain’t getting exercise enough.”

“He’s pretty old – still, I’d hate to go up against him myself… Say, you ask him, Cap!”

“I’ll think it over. He’s a little… I’ll tell you now he wouldn’t stand for your making a show of it. If he did it, it ‘ud just be for exercise.”