The next morning I asked Wurz, the manager, how often the hotel give them dances.
“Oh,” he says, “once or twice a month.”
I told him I didn’t see how they could afford it.
Kate went out after supper this next evening to take an automobile ride with Codd. So when I and Ella had set in the summer parlor a little wile, she proposed that we should go in and watch the bridge game. Well, I wasn’t keen for it, but when you tell wife you don’t want to do something she always says, “Why not?” and even if you’ve got a reason she’ll make a monkey out of it. So we rapped at the door of the red card room and Lady Perkins said, “Come in,” and in we went.
The two dudes and Mrs. Snell was playing with her again, but Perk was the only one that spoke.
“Set down,” she said, “and let’s see if you can bring me some luck.”
So we drawed up a couple of chairs and set a little ways behind her. Her and the anonymous dude was partners against Doc and Mrs. Snell, and they didn’t change all evening. I haven’t played only a few games of bridge, but I know a little about it, and I never see such hands as Perkie held. It was a misdeal when she didn’t have the ace, king and four or five others of one suit and a few picture cards and aces on the side. When she couldn’t get the bid herself she doubled the other pair and made a sucker out of them. I don’t know what they was playing a point, but when they broke up Lady Perkins and her dude was something like seven hundred berries to the good.
I and Ella went to bed wile they was settling up, but we seen her on the porch in the morning. She smiled at us and says: “You two are certainly grand mascots! I hope you can come in and set behind me again tonight. I ain’t even yet, but one more run of luck like last night’s and I’ll be a winner. Then,” she says, “I s’pose I’ll have to give my mascots some kind of a treat.”
Ella was tickled to death and couldn’t hardly wait to slip Sis the good news. Kate had been out late and overslept herself and we was half through breakfast when she showed up. The Mrs. told her about the big game and how it looked like we was in strong with the nobility, and Kate said she had some good news of her own; that Codd had as good as told her he was stuck on her.
“And he’s going to sell his invention for a million,” says Ella. “So I guess we wasn’t as crazy coming out to this place as some people thought we was.”
“Wait till the machine’s made good,” I said.
“It has already,” says Kate. “He was up in it yesterday and everything worked perfect and he says the Williamses was wild over it. And what do you think’s going to come off tomorrow morning? He’s going to take me up with him.”
“Oh, no, Sis!” said Ella. “S’pose something should happen!”
“No hope,” says I.
“But even if something should happen,” said Katie, “what would I care as long as it happened to Bob and I together!”
I told the waitress to bring me another order of fried mush.
“Tonight,” said Kate, “Bob’s going in Town to a theater party with some boys he went to college with. So I can help you bring Lady Perkins good luck.”
Something told me to crab this proposition and I tried, but it was passed over my veto. So the best I could do was to remind Sis, just before we went in the gambling den, to keep her mouth shut wile the play was going on.
Perk give us a smile of welcome and her partner smiled too.
For an hour the game went along about even. Kate acted like she was bored, and she didn’t have nothing to say after she’d told them, wile somebody was dealing, that she was going to have an aeroplane ride in the morning. Finally our side begin to lose, and lose by big scores. They was one time when they was about sixteen hundred points to the bad. Lady Perkins didn’t seem to be enjoying herself and when Ella addressed a couple of remarks to her the cat had her tongue.
But the luck switched round again and Lady Perk had all but caught up when the blow-off come.
It was the rubber game, with the score nothing and nothing. The Doc dealt the cards. I was setting where I could see his hand and Perk’s both. Platt had the king, jack and ten and five other hearts. Lady Perkins held the ace and queen of hearts, the other three aces and everything else in the deck.
The Doc bid two hearts. The other dude and Mrs. Snell passed.
“Two without,” says Lady Perkins.
“Three hearts,” says Platt.
The other two passed again and Perk says: “Three without.”
Katie had came strolling up and was pretty near behind Perk’s chair.
“Well,” says Platt, “it looks like—”
But we didn’t find out what it looked like, as just then Katie says: “Heavens! Four aces! Don’t you wished you was playing penny ante?”
It didn’t take Lady Perkins no time at all to forget her title.
“You fool!” she screams, w’eeling round on Kate. “Get out of here, and get out of here quick, and don’t never come near me again! I hope your aeroplane falls a million feet. You little fool!”
I don’t know how the hand come out. We wasn’t there to see it played.
Lady Perkins got part of her hope. The aeroplane fell all right, but only a couple of
