about this time the city of providence fell midspasm in a fit of civic morality. communities, like individuals, are prone to starts of strenuous virtue, and providence, bewailing her past iniquities, was pushing towards a pure if not a festive life. and because in this new mood to be excellent it was the easiest, nearest thing, providence smote upon the gambling brotherhood with the heavy hand of the police. the faro games and wheels of roulette were swept away and more than one who had shared their feverish profits were sent into captivity. yea forsooth! the gay fraternity of fortune whose staff of life was cards found themselves borne upon with the burden of bad days.
for myself i conceived this to be the propitious moment to open a faro room of my own. i had been for long of the guild of gamblers yet had never soared to the brave heights of proprietorship. i had bucked the games, but never dealt them. it came to me as a thought that in the beating midst of this moral tempest dwelt my opportunity. had i chosen a day of police apathy—an hour of gambling security—for such a move, i would have been set upon by every established proprietor. he would have resented my rivalry as a game warden would the intromissions of a poacher. and i’d have been wiped out—devoured horn and hide and hoof as by a band of wolves.
under these new conditions of communal virtue, however, and with the clan of former proprietors broken and dispersed, the field was free of menace from within; i would face no risk more grievous than the constabulary. these latter i believed i might for a season avoid; particularly if i unveiled my venture in regions new and not theretofore the home of such lawless speculation.
filled with these thoughts, i secured apartments sufficiently obscure and smuggled in the paraphernalia under cloud of night. the room was small—twenty feet square; there was space for no more than one faro table, and with such scant furnishing i went to work. for reasons which now escape me i called my place “the shotgun.”
heretofore i gave you assurance of the lapse of years since last i gambled at any game save the wall street game of stocks. i quit cards for that they were disreputable and the gains but small. stocks, on the contrary, are endorsed as “respectable;” at stocks one may gamble without forfeiture of position; also, there exist no frontiers to the profits which a cunning stock plan well executed may bring.
in my old simpler days, i well recall those defences of the pure gambler wherein my regard indulged. elia once separated humanity into two tribes—those who borrow and those who lend. in my younger philosophy i also saw two septs: those who lose and those who win. to me all men were gamblers. life itself was one continuous game of chance; and the stakes, that shelter and raiment and food and drink to compose the body’s bulwark against an instant conquest by death. of the inherent morality of gambling i nurtured no doubts. or, at the worst, i felt certain of its comparative morality when laid beside such commerces as banks and markets and fields of plain barter and sale. there is no trade (i said) save that of the hands which is held by the tether of any honesty. the carpenter sawing boards, the smith who beats out a horseshoe, the mason busy with trowel and mortar on sun-blistered scaffolds, hoarsely shouting “more bricks!” they in their way of life are honest. they are bound to integrity because they couldn’t cheat if they would. but is the merchant selling the false for the real—the shoddy for the true—is the merchant whose advertisements are as so many false pretences paid for by the line—is he more honest than the one who cheats with cards? is the lawyer looking looks of wisdom to hide the emptiness of his ignorance? is the doctor, profound of mien, who shakes portentous head, medicining a victim not because he has a malady but because he has a million dollars?
and if it become a question of fashion, why then, age in and age out, the gambler has been often noble and sometimes royal. in the days of the stuarts, or later among the dull ones of hanover, was it the peasant or the prince who wagered his gold at cards? why man! every royal court was a gambling house; every king, save one—and he disloved and at the last insane—a gambler. are not two-thirds of the homes of our american nobility—our folk of millions and fifth avenue—replete of faro and roulette and the very hotbed of a poisonous bridge whist? fy, man, fy! you who denounce gambling but preach your own plebeianism—proclaim your own vulgarity! the gambler has been ever the patrician.
with but one table, whereat i would preside as dealer, i required no multitude to man the shotgun. i called to my aid three gentlemen of fortune—seedy and in want they were and glad to earn a dollar. one was to be sentinel at the door, one would perch argus-like on the lookout’s stool, while the third,—an old suspicious camp-follower of chance,—kept the case. this latter, cautious man! declined my service unless i put steel bars on the only door, and as well on the only window. these he conceived to be some safeguard against invasions. they were not; but i spent money to put them in place to the end that his fluttered nerves be stilled and he won to my standard. and at that, he later pursued his business as case-keeper with an ear on the door and an eye on the small barred window, sitting the while half aloof from the table and pushing the case-buttons as the cards fell from the box with a timid forefinger and as though he proposed no further immersion in current crime than was absolutely demanded by the duties of his place. he sat throughout the games a picture of apprehension.
for myself, and to promote my profits, i gave both my people and my customers every verbal bond of safety. the story went abroad that i was “protected;” that no wolf of the police dared so much as glance at flock of mine. the shotgun was immune of arrest, so ran the common tale, and as much as leer and look and smile and shrug of shoulder might furnish them i gave the story wings.
this public theory of safety was necessary to success. in the then hectic conditions, and briskly in the rear of a stern suppression of resorts that had flourished for decades unshaken of the law, wanting this feeling of security there would have come not one dollar to take its hopeful chances at the shotgun. as it was, however, the belief that i lived amply “protected” took prompt deep root. and the fact that the shotgun opened in the face of storms which smote without pity upon others, was itself regarded as proof beyond dispute. no one would court such dangers unless his footing were as unshakable as gibraltar. thereupon folk with a heart for faro came blithely and stood four deep about my one table; vast was the business i accomplished and vast were the sums changed in. and behold! i widely prospered.
when i founded the shotgun, i was richer of hope than of money; but fortune smiled and within a fortnight my treasure was told by thousands. indeed, my patrons played as play those who are starved to gamble; that recess of faro enforced of the police had made them hawk-hungry. and my gains rolled in.
while i fostered the common thought that no interference of the law would occur and the shotgun was sacred ground, i felt within my own breast a sense of much unsafety. damocles with his sword—hung of a hair and shaken of a breeze—could have been no more eaten of unease. i knew that i was wooing disaster, challenging a deepest peril. the moment the shotgun became a part of police knowledge, i was lost.
still, i dealt on; the richness of my rewards the inducement and the optimism of the born gambler giving me courage to proceed. it fed my vanity, too, and hugely pleased my pride to be thus looked upon as eminent in my relations with the powers that ruled. they were proud, even though parlous days, those days when i ran the shotgun.
while i walked the field of my enterprise like a conqueror, i was not without the prudence that taketh account in advance and prepareth for a fall. aside from the table whereon dwelt the layout, box and check rack, and those half-dozen chairs which encircled it, the one lone piece of furniture which the shotgun boasted was a rotund lounge. those who now and then reposed themselves thereon noted and denounced its nard unfitness. there was neither softness nor spring to that lounge; to sit upon it was as though one sat upon a saratoga trunk. but it was in a farthest corner and distant as much as might be from the game; and therefore there arose but few to try its indurated merits and complain.
that lounge of unsympathetic seat was my secret—my refuge—my last resort. i alone was aware of its construction; and that i might be thus alone, i had been to hidden and especial pains to bring it from new york myself. that lounge was no more, no less than a huge, capacious box. you might lift the seat and it would open like a trunk. within was ample room for one to lie at length. once in one could let down the cover and lock it on the inside; that done, there again it stood to the casual eye, a lounge, nothing save a lounge and neither hint nor token of the fugitive within.
my plan to save myself when the crash should come was plain and sure. there were but two lights—gas jets, both—in the shotgun; these were immediately above the table, low hung and capped with green shades to save the eyes of players. the light was reflected upon the layout; all else was in the shadow. this lack of light was no drawback to my popularity. your folk who gamble cavil not at shadows for themselves so long as cards and deal-box are kept strongly in the glare. in event of a raid, it was my programme to extinguish the two lights—a feat easily per-formable from the dealer’s chair—and seizing the money in the drawer, grope my way under cover of darkness for that excellent lounge and conceal myself. it would be the work of a moment; the folk would be huddled about the table and not about the lounge; the time lost by the police while breaking through those defences of bars and bolts would be more than enough.
by the time the lights were again turned on and the goths in possession, i would have disappeared. no one would know how and none know where. when the blue enemy, despairing of my apprehension, had at last withdrawn with what prisoners had been made, i would be left alone. i might then uncover myself and take such subsequent flight as best became my liberty and its continuance.
often i went over this plan in my thoughts—a fashion of mental rehearsal, as it were—and the more i considered the more certain i became that when the pinch arrived it would not fail. as i’ve stated, none shared with me my secret of that hinged and hollow couch; it was my insurance—my cave of retreat in any tornado of the law; and the knowledge thereof steadied me and aided my courage to compose those airs of cheerful confidence which taught others safety and gave countenance to the story of my unqualified and sure “protection!” alas! for the hour that unmasked me; from that moment the shotgun fell away; my stream of golden profits ran dry; from a spectacle of reverence and respect i became the nine-day byword of my tribe!
it was a crowded, thriving midnight at the shotgun. i had been running an uninterrupted quartette of months; and having had good luck to the point of miracles, my finances were flourishing with five figures in their plethoric count. from a few poor hundreds, my “roll” when i snapped the rubber band about it and planted it deep within the safety of my pocket, held over fifty thousand dollars. quite a fortune; and so i thought myself.
it was, i repeat, a busy, winning midnight at the shotgun. there were doubtless full forty visitors in the cramped room. these were crowded about the table, for the most part playing, reaching over each other’s shoulders or under each other’s elbows, any way and every way to get their wagers on the layout. i was dealing, while to right and left sat my henchmen of the lookout and the case.
as on every evening, i lived on the feather-edge of apprehension, fearing a raid. my eye might be on the thirteen cards and the little fortunes they carried, but my ear was ever alert for a first dull footfall that would tell of destruction on its lowering way.
there had been four hours of brisk, remunerative play—for the game began at eight—when, in the middle of a deal, there came the rush of heavy feet and a tumult of stumblings and blunderings on the stair. it was as if folk unaccustomed to the way—it being pitch dark on the stairway for caution’s sake—and in vast eagerness to reach the door, had tripped and fallen. also, if one might judge from the uproar and smothered, deep profanity of many voices there were a score engaged.
to my quick intelligence, itself for long on the rack of expectancy and therefore doubly keen, there seemed but one answer to the question, of that riot on the stair. it was the police; the philistines were upon me; my gold mine of the shotgun had become the target of a raid!
it was the labor of an instant. with both hands i turned out the lights; then stuffing my entire fortune into my pockets i began to push through the ranks of bewildered gentlemen who stood swearing in frightened undertones expecting evil. silently and with a cat’s stealth, i found my way in the pitch blackness to the lounge. as i had foreseen, no one was about it to discover or to interfere. softly i raised the cover; in a moment i was within. lying on my side for comfort’s sake, i again turned ear to passing events. i had locked the lounge and believed myself insured.
meanwhile, within the room and in the hall beyond my grated door, the tumult gathered and grew. there came various exclamations.
“who doused those glims?”
“light up, somebody.”
also, there befell a volley of blows and kicks and thumps on the shotgun’s iron portals; and gruff commands:
“open the door!”
then some one produced a match and relighted the gas. i might tell that by a ray about the size and color of a wheat-straw which suddenly bored its yellow way through a hole in my shelter. the clamor still proceeded at the door; it seemed to augment.
since there could be no escape—for every soul saw himself caught like a rat in a trap—the door was at last unbarred and opened, desperately. of what avail would it be to force the arresting party to break its way? in despair the door was thrown wide and each of those within braced himself to meet his fate. after all, to visit a gambling place was not the great crime; the cornered ones might feel fairly secure. it was the “proprietor” for whom the law kept sharpest tooth!
when the door opened, it opened to the admission of a most delightful disappointment. there appeared no police; no grim array of those sky-hued watch-dogs of the city’s peace and order rushed through in search of quarry. instead came innocently, deviously, and with uncertain, shuffling steps, five separate drunken gentlemen. there had been a dinner; they had fed deeply, drunk deeply; it was now their pleasure to relax themselves at play. that was all; they had sought the shotgun with the best of motives; the confusion on the stair was the offspring of darkness and drink when brought to a conjunction. now they were within, and reading in the faces about them—even through the mists of their condition—the terrors their advent inspired, the visiting sots were much abashed; they stood silent, and like the lamb before the shearer, they were dumb and opened not their mouths.
but discovering a danger past, the general mood soon changed. there was a space of tacit staring; then came a rout of laughter. every throat, lately so parched, now shouted with derision. the common fear became the common jeer.
then up started the surprised question:
“where’s jack?”
it had origin with one to be repeated by twenty.
“where’s jack?”
the barred window was still barred; i had not gone through the door; how had i managed my disappearance? it was witchery!—or like the flitting of a ghost! even in my refuge i could feel the awe and the chill that began to creep about my visitors as they looked uneasily and repeated, as folk who touch some graveyard mystery:
“where’s jack?”
there was no help; fate held me in a corner and never a crack of escape! shame-faced, dust-sprinkled and perspiring like a harvest hand—for my hiding place was not nova zembla—i threw back the top of the lounge and stood there—the image of confusion—the “man with a pull”—the ally of the powers—the “protected” proprietor of the shotgun! there was a moment of silence; and next fell a whirlwind of mirth.
there is no argument for saying more. i was laughed out of providence and into new york. the shotgun was laughed out of existence. and with it all, i too, laughed; for was it not good, even though inadvertent comedy? also, was it not valuable comedy to leave me better by half a hundred thousand dollars—that comedy of the shotgun? and thereupon, while i closed my game, i opened my mouth widely and laughed with the others. in green-cloth circles the story is still told; and whenever i encounter a friend of former days, i’m inevitably recalled to my lounge-holdout and that midnight stampede of the shotgun.
“that’s where the west,” observed the old cattleman, who had given delighted ear to the red nosed gentleman’s story, “that’s where the west has the best of the east. in arizona a passel of folks engaged in testin’ the demerits of farobank ain’t runnin’ no more resks of the constables than they be of chills an’ fever.”
“there are laws against gambling in the west?” this from the jolly doctor.
“shore, thar’s laws.”
“why, then, aren’t they enforced?”
“this yere’s the reason,” responded the old cattleman. “thar’s so much more law than force, that what force exists is wholly deevoted to a round-up of rustlers an’ stage hold-ups an’ sech. besides, it’s the western notion to let every gent skin his own eel, an’ the last thing thought of is to protect you from yourse’f. no kyard sharp can put a crimp in you onless you freely offers him a chance, an’ if you-all is willin’, why should the public paint for war? in the east every gent is tryin’ to play some other gent’s hand; not so in that tolerant region styled the west. which it ain’t too much to say that folks get killed—an’ properly—in the west for possessin’ what the east calls virchoos.” and here the old cattleman shook his head sagely over a western superiority. “the east mixes itse’f too much in a gent’s private affairs. now if deef smith an’ colonel morton” he concluded, “had ondertook to pull off their dooel in the east that texas time, the east would have come down on ’em like a failin’ star an’ squelched it.”
“and what was this duel you speak of?” asked the sour gentleman. “i, for one, would be most ready to hear the story.1’
“which it’s the story of ‘when the capitol was moved.’”
