And then we start playin’, with deuces wild in the jackpots.
Once every six or seven weeks I win enough to pay for what the Missus loses. Hatch breaks even once out o’ ten times. The other nine times he quits ahead. Mrs. Hatch, as I told you, loses just the amount we’ve forced her to ante. Joe Tuttle’s in about the same boat as me. When his wife’s got an off night, and don’t lose over two or three bucks, he has a chance to beat the game.
After we’ve played about a half hour, the two women makes up their mind that they ain’t losin’ fast enough the way things is; so it’s moved and supported and carried that, from then on, everything’s a jackpot with deuces loose. That’s when Hatch begins his real cleanup, and I and Tuttle start plottin’ wifeicide, or whatever you call it.
If the host and hostess happens to be pretty far behind at midnight, we keep goin’ till two o’clock or worse. But if they’re winners, or anywheres near even, the sandwiches and coffee’s served round twelve bells. After that, the two couples that don’t live where the pastime was at goes home separate, so’s each couple can quarrel without the other overhearin’ it. The scrappin’ lasts till the party o’ the second part opens up the tear ducks. Then you have to pretend like you didn’t mean none of it.
II
But I was goin’ to tell you about Harry Quinn. He’s a boy about twenty-three or twenty-four years old and he’s been down to the office about a year and a half. He come there as a bookkeeper at twelve a week, but they just couldn’t keep him down; and six months ago they made him fourth assistant head shippin’ clerk at a salary o’ sixteen.
To show you what kind o’ taste he’s got, he took a likin’ to me; and every time he come past my desk he’d have to stop and chin a while. At first I didn’t mind, because it was fun to kid him. He never knew nothin’ about nothin’ and you could tell him almost anything and get by with it. Finally I run out o’ junk to feed him and when I’d see him comin’ I’d pretend I was too busy to talk.
But one day, along last February, I looked up and seen him standin’ beside me, simply bubblin’ over with some big news.
“Well, Harry,” I says, “spill it.”
“You’re married, ain’t you?” he ast me.
I told him I was.
“Do you mind tellin’ me,” he says, “how much it costs to live when you got a wife?”
“Practically nothin’,” I says. “Everything’s so reasonable these days.”
“Why,” he says, “I been readin’ a lot about high prices, and so on.”
“That’s a lot o’ bunk,” I told him. “Beefsteak’s only forty cents a pound; and if you’re well acquainted round the neighborhood you can get a potato for half a buck. And you get a rate of about $6 apiece on shoes if you buy two at once.”
“Could a man and wife live on sixteen a week?” he says.
“Live!” says I. “You could wallow in luxury.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” he says. “Marion’s father and mother was afraid that maybe I wasn’t gettin’ enough to support her.”
“Who’s Marion?” I ast him.
“The sweetest girl in the world!” he says.
“But you don’t have to support her just on that account,” says I.
“I’m goin’ to marry her,” he says.
“What ails her?” I says.
“What do you mean—what ails her?” he ast.
“Has she got a stigmatism or somethin’?” says I.
“No,” he says, “she comes from some o’ the best people. I never heard a word against any o’ them.”
“When was you figurin’ on gettin’ married to Marion?” I says.
“In April,” he says.
“Well,” says I, “maybe you’ll be drawin’ sixteen-fifty by that time, and then you’ll be on Easy Street.”
The next day he called again.
“Her mother and father’s fixed,” he says. “I told ’em what you said.”
“About the stigmatism?” says I.
“O’ course not,” he says. “I told ’em about the cost o’ livin’ bein’ all bunk.”
“Oh, you needn’t of told ’em that,” I says. “They probably knew it already. What did they say?”
“They says they seen it wasn’t no use to try and stop us,” says the kid; “but they insisted on us boardin’ with ’em for a while after we’re married.”
“Are you goin’ to do it?” I ast him.
“Sure,” he says. “We’ll board with ’em as long as they’ll keep us. Then Marion won’t be afraid while I’m here workin’.”
“Afraid o’ what?” I says.
“Gettin’ robbed,” says he.
“Well,” I says, “if I was Marion and married to you, that’s one thing I certainly would be scared to death of. Because, o’ course, you’ll keep all your savin’s in the kitchen cabinet.”
“I don’t expect we’ll have much savin’s at first,” he says.
“How much are they goin’ to soak you for board?” I ast him.
“Four dollars a week,” he says. “That includes three meals a day for Marion and two for me, and, o’ course, our lodgin’.”
“Either they are some o’ the best people,” says I, “or else they’re off their nut, or else they’s somethin’ about you that you leave home when you come to the office.”
He kept up his daily visits to me right along to the week o’ the ceremony. Four days before it was scheduled he ast me where I and my Missus had spent our honeymoon.
“Oh,” I says, “we spread ourself a little. We took in Niagara and Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon and the Canal, and wound up at Honolulu.”
“Goodness!” he says. “I couldn’t never afford that.”
“I couldn’t of, neither,” says I, “only for my father-in-law stakin’ us. He was a wealthy plumber in Wabash. But haven’t you thought about your honeymoon yet?”
“No,” he says; “I been too busy to think.”
“Busy with what?” I ast him.
“Bein’ in love,” he says, blushin’ prettily. “But do you know of any inexpensive trip
