Henry Blossom - Checkers - A Hard-luck Story

Without consulting the taste of my guest, I ordered a steak with mushrooms, potatoes, a salad, dessert and a bottle of claret, and began to read the evening paper.

For perhaps ten minutes we both were silent. I glanced at Checkers several times as I folded my paper in or out. He seemed to be lost in a reverie. But at last his thoughts came back to earth, and glancing up he said very softly, "The last time I took supper here was with my wife a year ago."

"Your wife," I exclaimed, starting with surprise. "You do n't mean to tell me you have a wife?"

"I had a wife," he answered sorrowfully, "but – "

"I beg you pardon, Checkers," I said, "I hope I have n't hurt your feelings."

"No, you have n't hurt them," he replied. "I 've got my feelings educated. I 've had so many ups and downs I 've learned to take my medicine. But I 'll bet I 've had the toughest luck of any guy that ever lived. A' year ago I had money, a wife and friends, and was doing the Vanderbilt act. In two short weeks I lost them all. I 've been 'on my rollers' ever since.

"But say, you wouldn't have known me if you 'd seen me here with my wife that time – my glad rags on, a stove-pipe lid, patent leather kicks and a stone on my front. We came to Chicago to take in the Fair, and dropped in here to eat, one night.

"We sat at that table over there; I remember it as though it was yesterday. I ordered all kinds of supper, and at last the waiter brings in some cheese and crackers. It was a kind of a greenish, mouldy cheese – Rocquefort! Yes, I believe that's it. I goes against a little piece of it, and 'on the grave,' I like to fainted. Good! Well, maybe you think it's good, but scratch your Uncle Dudley out of any race where they enter Rocquefort.

"Yes; those were happy days for me. I hate to think about them now. I had a good time while it lasted, though, and when they got me 'on the tram,' I had to go to hustlin'. Well, here comes supper. Excuse me now, while I get busy with a piece of that steak."

"But, Checkers," I expostulated, "I 'd like to hear the particulars. You must have an interesting story to tell. And if you don't mind – "

"Oh, I do n't know. It's a hard luck story. I've had the hot end of it most of my life. But you can see for yourself that I'm no 'scrub.' I come from good people, and I 've lived with good people. I can put up a parlor talk, or a bar-room talk. I've seen it all. But of course when a fellow 'hits the toboggan,' he gets to going down mighty fast."

"I appreciate all that, my boy," I said, "or I should n't have brought you here; and now if you will, while we are eating our dinner, give me a little sketch of how it all happened."

"Well, there is n't very much to tell as I know of – at least, anything that would interest you. To look back now it kind of seems as though things just pushed themselves along.

"You see, in the first place, my father and Uncle Giles, his brother, both fought in the war. Well, father got shot and came home a cripple. About ten years afterwards I was born. Then father died, and mother got a pension. She had some little money besides. After the war Uncle Giles came back and hung around our house. He was 'flat,' and he couldn't get a job. But he finally got some pension-shark to push a pension through for him, and after that he 'pulled his freight' and went to Baltimore to live. Mother and I stayed here in Chicago.

"Well, I went to school until I was twelve, and then I went to work in a store. Mother's health was very bad, though, and at last we went South on account of her lungs. We went to San Antonio, and at first the air kind of did her good. I gets a job in a dry goods store, and things are rollin' pretty smooth, when one night mother takes to coughing, has a hemorrhage and dies.

"There's no use trying to tell you my feelings. Mother was dead and I was alone. There was hardly a soul to come to her funeral. The minister and a few of the neighbors came in – my God, it was simply awful. I was still a kid, only fifteen, you see, and I felt the terrible lonesomeness of it.

"Well, mother had saved considerable money – twenty-six hundred dollars in all. I sold our furniture and came to Chicago, and went to board with some friends of the family. I worked more or less for two or three years; but my money made me kind of 'flossy,' and whenever I 'd feel like it, I 'd just throw up the job and quit.

"After a while I got so I did n't try to work. I fell in with a gang of sports that used to hang around the pool-rooms, and pretty soon 'your little Willie' was losing his money right and left. The local meeting came along, and I took to going out to the track. I was nearly broke when one day a tout tried to 'get me down' on a 'good thing' he had. I told him I would n't play it, but I afterwards shook him and put twenty on it – I 'm a goat if it did n't win, and I pulled down a thousand. I looked for the guy who gave me the tip, but I could n't find him anywhere. I guess he fell dead with surprise himself – at least I 've never seen him since.

"Now, about that time, I had to quit the family I was living with. They broke up housekeeping and moved away, leaving me on a cold, cold world. After that I did nothing but play the races. I followed them from town to town – St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, New Orleans – winning a little now and then, but up against it most of the time.

"I got the malaria down south, and I took a notion I 'd go to Hot Springs. You ever been there? No? Well say, you talk about your sportin' life – there is the onliest place to see it. Every kind of a gamblin' game you ever heard of runnin' wide – and everybody goes against 'em.

"I had heard that some of the games were crooked, and I thought I 'd be foxy and leave them alone. I left my leather full of bills with the clerk up in the hotel safe.

"A little more potato, please. Thanks, I am hungry, and that's no dream.

"Well, as I was saying, one day at the bath I meets a young guy in the cooling-room, and he springs a system to beat roulette, which figures out a mortal cinch. I do n't remember the system now, but I recollect we tried it ourselves on a private wheel, and it could n't lose. The only trouble with it was that with luck against us we might get soaked in doubling up before we win. But we made up our minds to begin it small, and be content with a little profit.

"We had a bank-roll of $600 – four from me and two from him. I was to have two-thirds of the profits, because I risked two thirds of the stuff.

"It was Thursday night we set to try it. Thursday was always my Jonah day. I wanted to wait until Saturday, but he did n't want to wait that long. I was to do the playing while he kept tab and told me what to do each whirl.

"Well, we buys a stack of a hundred chips, and runs them up to two hundred and fifty. I says, 'let's quit,' but he was stuck on pushing our luck while it came our way. We played along for half an hour, and hardly varied $50; then, all at once, we 'struck the slide,' and I had to buy another stack. We lost that; bought another and lost it, and stood in the hole $300.

"All the while we were playing the system, and I had a 'hunch' that if we kept on it would pull us out. So I starts to buy another stack when Kendall – his name was Arthur Kendall – stops me and says he wants to quit. Quit, with half our money gone! I was so sore I could have smashed him. And while we stood there arguing, without a nickel on the board, the wheel was rollin' dead our way – enough to have put us ahead of the game.

"I gave him his hundred, and told him to 'take it and chase himself' – I was through with him. I stuck to the game until five in the morning. They got every cent I had in the world.

"Well, I went to the hotel and went to bed, but I lay there wondering how I was going to dig up the money to pay my bill, and give me a start when my luck turned again. The longer I wondered the tougher it seemed. Finally I ordered an absinthe frappé – it kind of gave me a new idea. I 'd put up a song to my Uncle Giles, and try to make a little 'touch.'