and after she’d lost a couple of bets, she asked Jess to pick out some number for her to play.
He says, “Try Number thirty-five.” She put two checks on No. 35, and No. 35 it was.
And that’s the worst thing in the world that could of happened.
Jess told her she’d better quit for that time, as he couldn’t be expected to guess as lucky for her again. So she smiled and said thanks and cashed in.
She talked to him a while, as usual, and made another date to meet him on the beach.
The devil was still playing tricks on Jess that night and when she asked him what to bet on, he told her to split the O’s.
The most she’d bet before was a dollar at a crack, but this time she stuck six half-dollar checks between the O’s and the single O come.
Well, you take a normal woman and if a thing like that had happened, they’d scream or at least show some signs of excitement. But this dame just looked at Jess and said: “You’re a darling!” without raising her voice. He made her quit again and now she was seventy or eighty dollars to the good.
“I wish I’d been playing more,” she said. “It seems silly to just be piking when I can’t lose.”
“Can’t lose!” says Jess. “Don’t get that idear into your head! I’ve picked you a winner two nights in succession, that’s as much as you can hope for. You better quit while you’re winner.”
“You like me, don’t you?” she said.
“You know I do,” said Jess.
“Well, then,” said the gal, “I know you’ll keep picking them right. You see you can’t fool me.”
Jess said he didn’t realize then what she meant; he was too far gone to really think.
He asked her if she’d go swimming with him in the morning. She said no, that her brother was coming on the boat and she had to meet him.
“But listen,” she says: “If you’re awfully good to me tomorrow night, even better than tonight or last, why, I’ll run away from my brother the day after tomorrow and we’ll have a party all to ourselves.”
She started to leave, but changed her mind and sat down again.
“Isn’t there some kind of a limit in roulette?” she asked im.
“Yes,” says Jess. “We have a limit of twenty-five dollars flat on a number, but you can star it or make a wall around it, and besides that, you can play big on the color and the odd or even, and so forth, to say nothing of bets on the three numbers, across the board, that includes your number, and the five numbers that surrounds your number on all sides. But I hope you ain’t going to plunge like that.”
“Not me,” said the gal. “But my brother might. And I want you to remember that he’s my brother.”
“I wish him luck,” says Jess.
“He’ll have it if you wish it,” says the gal.
Then she made him lay out the checks so as they’d be placed right for a limit bet. He took No. 26 as an example and used twenty-five-dollar checks.
He put one flat on 26 and “walled” it with eight more.
He laid three checks on the line here, covering the numbers 25, 26, and 27. And six checks each on these two spots, covering besides them three numbers, the 22, 23, and 24, and the 28, 29, and 30.
“That’s all,” he says, “except that you can play a thousand on the even, a thousand on the black, another thousand on the last eighteen, five hundred on the third dozen and five hundred more on the middle column. Altogether, you’re playing $4,600 and you stand to win $10,700.”
“And do you think,” she says, “that twenty-six will be a good number tomorrow night?”
“As good as any,” said Jess. “However, don’t ever imagine that that kind of playing is for you.”
“Of course not,” said the dame. “But I can’t control my brother and he always splits with me.”
And she smiled and walked out.
You know how it’s going to wind up. The fella wasn’t no more her brother than I am, and anybody but poor, simple Jess would of guessed it as soon as you seen them together. But whoever he was, he had the snappy idear lots of people gets—that the dealer can spin any number he wants—and he believed the gal when she told him Jess was so stuck on her that they was no chance for them to lose.
The moron didn’t lay the big bets on the even, the black, the last eighteen, and so on. But he bought enough twenty-five-dollar checks to cover No. 26 in every other way. His investment was $600 and his winnings was $5,700. That is, they would of been $5,700 if the ball hadn’t dropped in No. 4.
Before we had wrestled them out of the place, the gal had just missed poor Jess’s head with a heavy glass ashtray and had called him names that she’d never learned from a brother.
That’s how Jess come to quit dealing. I heard he was starting elevators in some office building way down on lower Broadway. I forget the address. Maybe it’s No. 26.
The Venomous Viper of the Volga
In early October, Luke Lewis, prominent promoter in what Bill McGeehan calls the cauliflower industry, conferred with little Sandy King, his press-agent and right-hand man.
“We got to make different plans,” said Luke. “I figured the new champ would be good for one sellout in the Arena this winter and at least one big outdoor show in May or June. But you seen what happened last night. He makes his first public appearance since winning the title, and he gets booed. People don’t want a champion that’s interested in this here anesthetic dancing and bee culture. Match him with anybody but Ryan and he wouldn’t draw flies. What we got to do is leave him lay for a year, till we can put him and Ryan on in a return match.”
“If I was a
