# Argosy and Railroad/A Chinaman's Chance

Extracted from Argosy and Railroad magazine, v108, 24 May 1919, pp. 253-263. Heading illustration omitted.
A Chinaman's Chance
by H. A. Lamb
I.
“MR. FU CHEN to see you, sir.”
Rob Harding looked up from his desk. It was a mahogany desk. Probably it had cost McKestry & Squires a round sum when it was bought. It stood with several others neatly ranged against the wall in the space allotted to the junior employees of the investment house. Harding’s papers were placed in orderly piles—correspondence and customers’ files. McKestry & Squires liked to see a well arranged desk.
“Who?” said Harding.
The office boy grinned. Harding was popular with him.
“It’s a Mr. Fu Chen—a Chinaman. But he don’t wear no pigtail. He says he knows you—”
“Oh, Fu Chen. Bring him right in.”
Harding smiled. Years ago when he had been old enough to go alone to school and young enough to play hooky, he had frequently spent hours at the laundry of Fu Chen, around the corner from his home. The Chinaman had given him dried, sugared fruits of strange vintage to eat, and incense sticks to play with. Also, Harding had delighted in watching the laundryman paint queer crosses and lines on the parcels of clothes. It had been a secure refuge.
Later, he had formed the habit of dropping in for a word or two with Fu Chen. Harding, from boyhood up, had the gift of making friends. Fu Chen, who did not seem to alter in the least with the passage of years, had welcomed him. Sometimes Harding had watched the Chinaman play, with a few companions in the inner room, unending games of fan tan. He had wanted to join in the games; but Fu Chen would not let him.
Harding had outgrown the fruits and punk sticks. He had come to wonder how the Chinaman worked so constantly over the ironing-board. He would have wondered more if he knew how many nights the laundryman spent over the roulette or stuss tables in the gambling joints of the lower Bowery.
But Fu Chen’s ancestors had passed their lives in pushing wheelbarrows equipped with wind sails and loaded with cotton bales sufficient to weigh down four mules; or in laboring at the oar of a river junk. They were tireless workers, and equally tireless gamblers. Both these characteristics were Fu Chen’s.
When Harding married and set up house keeping, Molly, his wife, had objected to sending the family laundry to the small and perhaps not altogether sanitary shop of Fu Chen. Harding, remembering the sugared ginger and punk sticks of his boyhood days, had overruled her objections.
Once Molly had visited the Chinaman.
“You have plenty children soon, Mrs. Molly,” beamed Fu Chen. “I give them plenty joss sticks, you bet.”
Thereafter Molly had sent the maid when she had business to transact with Fu Chen. Harding had laughed when she told him about the episode. “He’s a good old chap,” he said. “He’d be hurt if I sent the wash to one of these new steam laundries.”
Harding had seen little of the Chinaman, once he became a bond salesman. Molly, because the laundry was neatly done and promptly, ceased to remark upon the evils of “that Chinaman’s place.” Then, on an evening when Harding was hurrying past the laundry to his home, Fu Chen had trotted out and stopped him. He asked Harding into his shop—into the back room.
“You invlest money?” he asked.
“Why, yes,” assented the bond salesman, surprised. “That’s my business; when I can find anybody with money to invest.”
Fu Chen beamed. He said, in his broken English, that the Harding maid had gossiped about her master’s business. He had been thinking, he added.
“You invlest money me?” he inquired anxiously. “Hundled, ten dol-lar?”
Now McKestry & Squires were not accustomed to handling amounts under the thousands. The firm’s clients were among the notables of New York. Harding had wondered how Fu Chen had come to accumulate a hundred and ten dollars. Usually, he remembered, the laundryman squandered his earnings at the gaming table.
“I might,” he considered, “on my own account. What kind of an investment have you in mind?”
Fu Chen’s smile broadened. Savings banks, he explained, were no good. He had put in some money once, and when he had taken it out it had been the same amount, neither more nor less—to his disappointment.
“You know how,” he concluded. “I give you hundled, ten dol-lar; you give me more some time, maybe.”
“In other words,” Harding laughed, “you want to speculate in stocks, Fu Chen.”
Harding, being an intelligent young man with a wife to support, had not touched speculation. He knew the odds against making money at that game, the heavy odds against the man who “takes a flier in stocks.” However, it was part of his profession to know the stock-market. He took out the evening paper that he had in his pocket and scanned it while Fu Chen counted out the hundred and ten dollars.
Among the quotations for that day had been a number of low-priced railroad stocks. It was a year when rails were out of favor. Tampa and Quimberly common caught his eye. This particular stock was christened Tee and Que by the traders—T. & Q. on the tape.
“It may be lucky,” he observed humorously. “Tee and Que—a Chinese name. Eh, Fu Chen?”
You buy it,” decided that gentleman promptly. The word luck stands for a great reality with the superstitious Chinaman. No buck negro coaxing his dice was more a servant of the fickle god than Fu Chen.
Harding had bought it. T. & Q., he reasoned, was selling at six dollars and a few cents a share. Naturally, the road was bankrupt, and in about as bad a condition as could be imagined. Nothing more could very well happen to it, reasoned Harding. If it could not get worse, it might get better. Anyway, if the venture turned out badly, he would pay Fu Chen the hundred and ten out of his own pocket. So he purchased, through an odd-lot house, eighteen shares of T. & Q., and gave the certificate to Fu Chen.
And promptly forgot about it.
Not so the Chinaman. From time to time he would remind Harding of the “invlestment.”
Now it happened that the rails came into favor with the buying public again. Many were found who thought along the lines that Harding had reasoned out. T. & Q. rose. After a year it was quoted at fourteen dollars a share.
Harding had explained this to Fu Chen. The Chinaman understood—and bought more of T. & Q. It was lucky; and when the devils of chance smiled on Fu Chen he was not one to keep them waiting.
From time to time during the next few years Fu Chen had Harding buy more of T. & Q.—ten or twelve shares at a time. Harding had taught the Chinaman to watch the quotations in the stock reports and interpret them.
But never before to-day had Fu Chen ventured to call at the office of McKestry & Squires. Harding had confided the story of the investment to the members of the firm. It had become something of a joke in the house. Time—notwithstanding popular belief to the contrary—frequently hangs heavily on the hands of investment agents. Harding would be asked: “How’s the Chink’s stock?” “Going strong,” he would reply, laughing.
He looked up with curiosity as Fu Chen entered.
II.
The Chinaman was dressed in a decent black coat, and black fedora. His broad toed shoes were polished, and he wore a dark silk handkerchief in place of a collar. He bowed with embarrassed politeness, and remained standing—refusing the chair Harding offered him.
“Glad to see you,” observed the salesman. “What can I do for you?” He guessed that it must be something important to bring Fu Chen into the portals of a place like the office of McKestry & Squires.
“I want see you, Mr. Bob—vellee much.”
Fu Chen launched into his tale at once. A strange tale it was, full of eloquent gestures, apologies, and butchered English. Harding listened attentively. When the Chinaman had finished, he rose.
“I think Mr. Squires may be able to tell you what you want to know, Fu Chen. I can’t.”
He left the room, returning presently with the junior partner. Fu Chen bowed, not once but several times, in recognition Of the cutaway that Squires wore.
“This is my friend, Mr. Fu Chen,” introduced Harding.
The, junior partner smiled. “We’ve heard of you,” he said.
He had humorous gray eyes that lighted in friendly fashion. Fu Chen’s embarrassment deepened. The Chinaman had not expected to see an individual who, he thought, was plainly by reason of his stoutness and long-tailed coat, one of the upper-class mandarins.
“As nearly as I can gather,” explained Harding, “Mr. Fu Chen wants to know if it is a good time to sell T. & Q. He has quite a number of the shares, you know. A man at one of the gambling joints on the Bowery offered him cash for the stock—and more than the present quotations.”
“T. & Q. sold yesterday at thirty-one and a half,” commented the junior partner gravely. “What did the—the gambler chap offer you?”
Fu Chen ejaculated two words which Harding translated as “Thirty-five dollars.”
Squires’s level eyebrows rose.
“I never knew any one to offer money that he didn’t expect to get back, somehow, Fu Chen. Don’t sell.”
Fu Chen ducked his head. “You say so? All light.”
He turned as if to go when Squires checked him.
“Funny about that cash offer, Harding. Now, if T. & Q. was an oil stock—hold on. Come here a minute.”
He led the two out to where a ticker was rapping out the day’s quotations. He skimmed the tape through his fingers with the skill of long practise. And showed Harding a figure.
“Thought so. T. & Q.’s at thirty-four and a quarter, and strong. Now what made it jump three points overnight?”
Fu Chen eyed the ticker with intent wonderment. It was a sort of magic, he thought—a machine that talked of itself. He waited impassively while Squires and Harding went to the news ticker and conferred.
“Congratulations, Fu Chen,” said the junior partner, coming back. “The news is out. Guess your friend saw it in the late editions last night. Oil has been struck along the right-of-way of the T. & Q. The railroad runs through one of the richest oil regions of the West. The stock will be worth double its present figure in a month.”
The Chinaman hardly understood this, but Harding interpreted.
“Your luck’s good, Fu Chen,” he said. “You hold T. & Q.—tight. Maybe you get seventy dollars for it in a month. Don’t sell to any one, unless I tell you to. How many shares have you?”
“Shares?” Fu Chen thought. “Thirty.”
“I didn’t know you had so much. Well, you’ll be rich before long—have a lot of money.”
When Fu Chen had made his smiling exit and Squires had returned to his sanctum, Harding went back to his desk. Fu Chen had been lucky, he thought. Well, he was glad. He wished, though, that he might have had some of T. & Q. himself. He and Molly had just bought a house in the suburbs. It had cost a good deal, and Harding’s bank balance had suffered accordingly.
That night T. & Q. closed at thirty-nine.
The next day and the next it rose some more. The territory around the small, one track line had developed oil in quantity. The T. & Q. trains were again in full operation. Better, the railroad company owned one of the big gushers.
T. & Q. continued its steady rise. Oil stocks were selling high. The Street began to talk of possible dividends on the T. & Q. There were rumors of a melon about to be cut by the once despised line.
Commission houses began to telegraph their clients that T. & Q. was a good thing. Western wire houses bought of it heavily. It was doubly attractive, for it was both a railroad and oil stock.
A week after Fu Chen’s visit to McKestry & Squires, T. & Q. touched sixty. It was in great demand, and those who had the stock were keeping it.
“Your Chink friend has a good thing,” commented McKestry, who had heard about the visit, in passing. “Why not buy him out? He’d sell to you.”
“No thanks,” refused Harding. “It’s his investment. It’s good for a big rise. They’re talking of eight per cent dividend on the common stock—”
McKestry passed on with an assenting nod, and Harding leaned back in his chair, well content. He was glad that Fu Chen was going to make some money. Abruptly, he frowned. The thought of money reminded him that his balance at the bank was down to some three hundred dollars.
Then his brow lightened. After all, he had his salary. And he and Molly had bought the home in the suburbs. They would need that home, because, well, because there would soon be three in the family.
Harding drew out a piece of note-paper. He smiled, recalling what Fu Chen had once said to Molly—that she would soon have children. Idly, he noted down on the paper a rough statement of his—as he put it to himself humorously—assets and liabilities.
Under “assets” he wrote down the three hundred in the bank. And his salary, as “current income.”
Under liabilities he put the monthly rent of his new house. He had bought it on the usual plan—one half down in cash, the rest to be paid in the form of rent. And he added a round sum, “for Molly’s personal account in the near future.”
He surveyed the paper with grave approval. A printed slip among his letters caught his eye. It was a notice from his bank that his note for twenty-five hundred dollars was due within a week.
Harding had forgotten the note. He could afford to smile at the printed form. It had been a favor to a friend. Ed Wheeler, a college chum, had started business recently in New York as a real-estate broker. Wheeler had needed some money a couple of months ago, and Harding had signed his name to the note for twenty-five hundred that Wheeler had discounted at their bank.
“Wheeler’s just about as honest as they make ’em,” he thought to himself, “and his business as good as—well, three hundred per cent good. He was a stranger at the bank, that’s all.”
There was no reason for Harding to worry about payment of the note. Wheeler had the money, or would have when the time came to pay off the twenty-five hundred. He—Harding—had lunched with him only the other day.
He scribbled down the twenty-five hundred under “liabilities.” Then crossed it out. McKestry & Squires would not approve of his backing another man’s note. It was one of the rules of the firm. Perhaps that was because McKestry & Squires did not want trouble over money matters among their employees.
An investment house has to be jealous of its publicity, Harding thought indulgently. It was as much as his job was worth, if McKestry knew of the note. But the transaction would be closed in a few days. Meanwhile—
He tore up his mock balance sheet and went to seek his hat. He would lunch with Ed Wheeler. Perhaps he would tell him that Molly was going to have a son, or daughter.
Smiling at the reflection, he sought for his friend among the tables of the place where they lunched. Wheeler had not come in yet. Harding inquired for him casually of the proprietor of the restaurant.
“Ain’t you heard?” asked that individual. “Mr. Wheeler was run down by a motor-car this morning. He’s in the hospital, badly hurt.”
Harding whistled softly. Ed Wheeler was one of his best friends. He went to-the phone in the lunch-room and called up the hospital the other had named.
When he left the phone his face was serious. Wheeler was severely injured. He was unconscious, suffering from concussion. A fracture of the skull was feared. Wheeler might die or he might live. But he was very ill.
Not until then did Harding recall the note he and Wheeler had signed. He finished his lunch hastily and went out. From a near-by booth he called up Wheeler’s office. He inquired whether his friend had left instructions for the payment of the note when it fell due. A clerk answered him.
Wheeler had left no instructions. He attended to such things himself.
“But you know about the note,” returned Harding. “It has got to be paid.”
“I did not know of it, sir.”
“You have the cash in the office safe, or somewhere, to pay it with?”
There was a pause. Then—
“No, sir. We have only a little cash here. Mr. Wheeler would know—”
“He can’t be reached now.” Harding frowned uneasily. “Look here: can you raise twenty-five hundred in six days?”
Not that I know of, sir. Mr. Wheeler must have arranged it himself.”
“I see.” Harding hesitated. “All right.”
He returned to McKestry & Squires. This time he did not forget the note. He took out the slip from the bank and read it through again. When he left the office that night his face was grave.
III.
But it was not all right. And Harding knew it. When a note is due at the bank, that note must be paid. Harding had signed his name to the note. If Wheeler did not bring the money to the bank, he—Harding—must pay the twenty-five hundred dollars.
And he did not have twenty-five hundred dollars. He was worried. Wheeler must have made an arrangement for paying the money. But Wheeler—as he learned when he visited the hospital, on the second day—was not able to see any one.
A fracture of the skull, even slight, is a serious matter. There had been an operation. His friend was in a semiconscious state, and had not yet spoken a word.
“Ask him about business?” the physician snorted. “Man, you’re crazy. Impossible. It will be a week, if all goes well, before we let him talk at all. Maybe you can see him in ten days—”
“I understand,” nodded Harding. “Well, don’t worry him about my visit.”
From the hospital he went to the bank. A brief question there told him what he wanted to know. The bank expected payment of the note when it was due. Not a renewal, but payment. If Wheeler could not pay, Harding would be called upon.
Not until then did the bond salesman allow himself to realize that he was in a fix.
“A devil of a fix, too,” he thought grimly. “Twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth.”.
He took out a sheet of scrap-paper and figured on it. He had three hundred in the bank. His salary for the week would add a little more. An advance on his salary for the next month would add more. The total was only five hundred.
And, meanwhile, he and Molly had to live. He had said nothing to her about the note. He must not worry her now.
There was the home in the suburbs, of course. But—Molly had just finished putting the last touches to the hangings and furniture. They were planning to move in as soon as she should be able to. As soon as the Harding family numbered three.
Molly had set her heart on the country home. She would need the change of air. She must keep the home. Harding tore up the paper, and there was a dogged set to his good-natured mouth as he did so.
The next day or two went badly for him. Only once did he have occasion to smile. Fu Chen came in.
The Chinaman wore a new celluloid collar with a tie of gorgeous hues. This, coupled with a derby hat, was a sign of unwonted prosperity. He grinned at Harding.
T. & Q., said Fu Chen, was at eighty. It had more than doubled its price in the last few days.
“You’re lucky,” smiled Harding. “Why, you own thirty shares. At eighty that’s a good deal of money. Hang on to T. & Q.”
“You bet!” assented Fu Chen forcibly.
Harding asked if he had closed the laundry. Fu Chen seemed surprised. Why should he? He needed money for fan-tan.
“Still trying to make the ‘big play,’ eh?”
Fu Chen said he was, and departed, with a curious look at Harding. For a second the Chinaman had hesitated, as if about to ask a question.
Harding turned back to his desk silently. The “big play” he had mentioned had been something of a joke with them. For years, with the patient expectancy of the Oriental gambler, Fu Chen had staked his money at the roulette table. Whenever he had twenty dollars gleaned from his laundry work, or more likely his fan-tan, the Chinaman would stake it for the big play—a hundred-to-one chance. If the little ball in the roulette wheel should fall into the pocket he had wagered on, he would be rich. Otherwise, he lost his money.
He had always lost.
Harding had never understood why Fu Chen wanted to throw good money after bad in this fashion. At fan-tan or dice, thrown in the bowl, Chinese fashion, Fu Chen could have an evening’s sport, and win or lose five or ten dollars. But at roulette—a whirl of the wheel and he was broke for another four or five months.
But Harding did not know the Chinese gambling soul. Or the thrill that comes in watching a whirl of the wheel once in four months. It was akin to no other sensation that Fu Chen knew—that brief moment by the roulette table. Fu Chen, perhaps, suspected that the wheel did not always revolve fairly; but he did not cease trying for what Harding had dubbed the big play.
IV.
Two days passed without change in Wheeler’s condition. Harding inquired at the hospital, and learned that his friend was conscious but unable to speak. Wheeler would recover. Harding was gladdened by this news. It left him, however, alone to meet the note that was due in two days.
He had figured it all out. He could get five hundred dollars together, neither more nor less. To borrow two thousand among his friends was out of the question. To ask it of McKestry, equally so. The investment house, in spite of personal friendship, could not afford to make good a bad debt of an employee.
The two days would pass, the bank would summon him for an accounting. They would confiscate his small stock of cash, and force the sale of the home in the suburbs. And Molly needed both money and a home. No one except Harding knew how badly she needed them.
He looked up quickly from his desk as McKestry appeared at his side. He wondered if McKestry had heard of the note. Bad news travels swiftly. But the senior partner had something else on his mind.
“By the way,” observed McKestry, and paused. Harding’s pulse quickened. “I’ve learned something about T. & Q., Harding. That stock has climbed all it’s going to. The oil boom is up to its peak. And the T. & Q. aren’t going to pay any dividends. The stock will break a dozen points when the bad news gets out. Better tell your client, Mr. Fu Chen, to sell out now while the selling’s good—”
“Thanks,” nodded Harding. “I will.”
He dictated a letter in one syllable words to Fu Chen and sent it to the laundry by messenger. An hour brought the Chinaman to the office with his stock certificates.
If Harding said it was time to sell, Fu Chen was content. His luck had been good.
Meanwhile, Harding had telephoned the order to sell thirty T. & Q. at the market. The sale went through before noon, while the stock was still strong. Harding got eighty-five for the stock. Then the unfavorable rumors began to flood into the Street.
T. & Q. wavered, and broke. On the ticker, Harding saw it drop to eighty-one. It closed at seventy-eight, a loss of seven points for the day. But Fu Chen had sold out.
Harding, knowing that the Chinaman could not cash a check, had the amount in cash. He counted the bills and placed them in one of the McKestry & Squires envelopes. As he did so he thought fleetingly that he might lie to Fu Chen—say something had happened to delay the sale. The Chinaman would believe whatever he said.
Yes, Fu Chen would accept what money Harding gave him without question. And the salesman needed the money—badly. The temptation passed as quickly as it had come. The money was Fu Chen’s. Harding could not take it.
He sealed the envelope, marked it with Fu Chen’s name, and put it in his pocket.
On his way home that evening he stopped at the laundry of Fu Chen. He found the Chinaman in black silk jacket and sandals bending over the ironing board.
“Here’s your money, Fu Chen,” he said. “Count it.”
A gleam of interest crept into the Chinaman’s stolid face as he fingered the yellow bills. He looked at Harding. “Velly good invlestment.”
“I should say so,” nodded the salesman briefly, intent on “his own thoughts. “You were lucky.”
“Thankee you, Mr. Bob.” Fu Chen ducked his head in the manner that his father might have kotowed before a friendly mandarin. Getting no response, he glanced at his visitor curiously from slant eyes. He plied his iron for a moment; then laid it down with decision. “You and Mrs. Molly catchem boy soon, maybe.” He grinned. “Velly good: you bet!”
Harding started. Fu Chen explained that he had learned as much from the gossip of the maid who called for the laundry. Among Chinese the advent of a boy in the family is an event more important than marriage or death or anything else. Harding laughed.
“That’s why I wish I’d had some of your T. & Q., Fu Chen. It would come in handy now.”
Although he had laughed, his eyes were mirthless and there were hard lines about his mouth—lines that had gathered in the past week. Fu Chen studied him. He had all an Oriental’s keen observation, and he had known Harding for many years.
“You need money?” He thrust gnarled hands into his sleeves and leaned closer. “You likee some money, Mr. Bob?”
“I’d like some,” admitted the salesman. “I never needed it quite as badly as I do now, Fu Chen.”
“How much you want?”
“Two thousand or more.”
Fu Chen nodded thoughtfully. His glance strayed to the pile of bills. The gods of luck presiding over the foreigners at McKestry & Squires had put this money in his hand. It was possible, thought Fu Chen, that these same gods had proved unlucky for Harding. Moreover, the Harding maid had gossiped—about doctors and the bills they sent. Fu Chen understood this. “They cuttee you—you pay ’em thousand dol-lar,” he had observed sagely to the maid.
Then he told Harding something. He—Fu Chen—had money. He was rich, thanks to the strange gamble of the talking machine—the stock ticker—and the help of Harding. He would give some of this money to Mr. Bob. As much as that gentleman needed. Payment could wait.
It was a long speech for Fu Chen, and it taxed his scanty supply of English. Harding was silent for a moment.
“How long have you worked in this laundry?” he asked abruptly.
Fu Chen shook his head. His ideas of time were hazy.
“Well, it’s fifteen or twenty years. And you’ve worked hard. I know.” Harding smiled, not altogether cheerfully. “You’ll need that money, Fu Chen. If you gave it to me, there’s no telling how long it would be before you got it back again. No, you keep that money. Put it in the savings bank. Don’t try to make the big play with it.”
He took up his hat and moved toward the door. But his words stirred Fu Chen into sudden activity. The Chinaman’s eyes widened slightly and he touched Harding’s arm.
“You got twenty dol-lar?” he asked eagerly.
Harding nodded. To-day had been payday.
“You give me that twenty dol-lar.”
“Haven’t you got enough?”
Yes, Fu Chen had enough. But—
“I invlest it,” he explained vehemently.
Harding declined good-naturedly.
“No, thanks.”
Fu Chen, however, persisted. He wanted Harding to give him that twenty dollars. Only for a day or two. He had an idea, he said. What it was he would not say. Eventually Harding, who had other cares on his mind, gave him the money, and left the laundry.
V.
That evening when it was too dark to work, Fu Chen put aside his iron. Usually at this time he lighted the gas and kept on at his labor. To-night he did not do so.
In the cubby behind the laundry he exchanged his sandals for street shoes, and thrust a packet of cheap cigarettes into the breast of his blouse. Taking up his hat he stepped out into the street, locking the door after him. He lit one of the cigarettes and glanced up at a neighboring clock. It was the hour when white people would be sitting down to their dinners. But Fu Chen was not hungry.
The street lamps had glimmered forth, and the shadows gathered in the hallways. Fu Chen ascended the steps to the Elevated, and seated himself in a down-town train. At South Ferry he changed to an up-town, East Side train, threading his way through the crowd of belated commuters bound for the ferry.
At Chatham Square he descended to the noise and glare of the lower Bowery. Here he was in familiar surroundings. Blue clad Chinamen brushed past him, with gangs of seamen, and throngs of loafers. A strident hand organ resounded from a winding street in which flared the inviting summons of a mission sign. Near him echoed the song of the tireless Salvation Army followers.
All these Fu Chen heeded not. He slipped quietly up the Bowery for two or three blocks. His wrinkled face was expressionless; his back bent from the toil of the laundry; his hands hidden in his sleeves. Only a slight widening of the faded, slant eyes showed that Fu Chen sought something of unusual interest near the narrow streets which are the entrance to Chinatown.
At a corner saloon he looked up quickly at the windows of the second floor. A dingy sign proclaimed a pool-parlor. He entered a hallway, but did not seek the pool-room. On the third floor of the structure he knocked at a door over which sputtered a gas-jet. The door opened at once, and Fu Chen slipped inside. It was a stuss joint, patronized by the dime sports of the lower East Side.
Fu Chen crossed to a beer-table where a mixed group of negroes, white sailors, and Chinamen were watching the fall of dice in a bowl. Here Fu Chen drew a hand from his sleeves and deposited some silver on the table. The dice were silently given him and he rolled them. A moment more and he drew back. His silver was gone. A drunken Norwegian elbowed him to one side.
Fu Chen merely glanced at the man fleetingly and withdrew from the circle. He stood back against the wall, and waited. It was early. Too early for Fu Chen’s purpose.
An hour later Fu Chen left the stuss game and sought an alley off the street. At the end of the alley was a cigar-store, odorous of dirt and tobacco trimmings. The proprietor, a stout man in shirt sleeves and suspenders nodded to him, and he pushed through the curtain that shielded an inner room.
Here there was less noise than at the stuss game. Men gathered around a table looked up quickly at his entrance and let their gaze wander back to a wheel which spun and clicked on the table. Less silver and more bills were in evidence here.
Fu Chen patiently edged his way to the roulette wheel, and watched for a moment. Presently his hand reached out and dropped a roll of bills on a certain square of the table. The man at the wheel glanced up at him and nodded fleetingly.
“Twenty,” said Fu Chen, and waited. Others made their plays. The wheel spun, the marble clicked, rolled and came to a halt.
Fu Chen shook his head slightly. The wrinkles in his grave face deepened. The man at the wheel swept up his twenty dollars. Fu Chen withdrew from the table.
Again he passed the fat man in the cigar-store. This time he paused at the alley entrance. From the Bowery came the hum of the late evening throng, echoing the rattle of the Elevated and the stentorian voice of the conductor of a rubberneck bus which rumbled by with paper lanterns at its prow. The Salvation Army song had long been silenced.
Fu Chen stood patiently, his sharp face turning slowly from side to side as if questing. He had not yet found what he wanted. He had wagered and lost Harding’s twenty dollars. He was not yet satisfied.
While he watched, several taxis halted in front of one of the larger saloons. Fu Chen saw a touring-car discharge its group of men into the saloon. Then another. Fu Chen’a head lifted. It was midnight. The men were arriving from the up-town theater section.
Fu Chen followed one of the groups into the saloon. They passed through the rear parlor where some women of the street were chattering in strident gaiety to a party of boys from up-town. Fu Chen paid no attention to them. Up-stairs he followed his guides, into a smoke-filled, brightly lighted room where a dozen tables held their throngs of men.
Here the noise was unrestricted. In the pages of the newspapers, and in the statements of the police, the lid was on the Bowery gambling joints. But this place stood in with the police, under guise of a private club. Fu Chen did not smile as he tendered a dollar bill to a powerful individual at the door and received a ticket entitling him to membership in the club.
He passed by the poker-tables and the roulette outfits. Dice were falling in one corner, and here Fu Chen stopped. He noted the yellow bills that lay on the board, the fashionable clothes of the men, and edged nearer.
A red-faced individual wearing a purple tie was chewing at a cigar and fumbling with dice—evidently well seasoned in drink. Beside him sat a well-dressed youth, apparently half asleep, except for deep breaths of a cigarette stuck to his lip. Fu Chen pointed to the dice and exhibited a small roll of green bills.
“Hello, here’s a Chink!” The man of the purple tie chuckled and nudged his companion. “Small change, John, but—here we go. Watch us, boys!” He rattled the dice. “Read ’em and shed tears.”
Fu Chen said nothing. At the end of five minutes he had won double his few bills. The red-faced man muttered under his breath.
“Say, don’t tease me wid them ones and twos. Let’s have real action.” He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a twenty. “Come on, John. Let’s see you grab that boy.” He swore softly and licked his cigar. Fu Chen had thrown high dice every time. “Say”—his hand came out empty from his pocket, and he turned to the man with the cap and cigarette—“lend me a century.”
“Nix,” replied that person calmly. “Your luck’s bad. The Chink’s got your number.”
Fu Chen drew a sibilant breath. Ignoring his late opponent, he showed a thick wad of bills and nodded at the man with the cap.
“You play high?” he suggested quickly. “I got money—five hundled, maybe more. You likee shoot ’em some?”
His bland face was impassive. But his black eyes were intent, with the sharp eagerness of a fox that scents something in the wind. Others around the table looked at the two.
“Fu Chen’s got a roll,” said one. “Take him on, Joe.”
The youth of the cigarette hesitated. He liked better to back a sure thing—such as the earnings of the girls in the outer parlor, who were his property. Still, Fu Chen had attracted attention to him, and he did not like to back down publicly.
“Sure,” he said indifferently, tossing down five hundred in bills in front of him. “Get a bowl, John, and roll ’em. I’m wid you. Quick stuff for mine. Two outer three rolls takes the candy.”
Fu Chen’s eyes narrowed as he tossed the first dice into the bowl.
“Pair of threes,” muttered the man of the purple tie. “Come on, Joe. You can beat—”
“Sure,” whispered Joe. “Read the babies—a six an’ eight. You pushed your luck too far, Fu Chen.”
The Chinaman took up the dice silently. Attracted by the crowd around the table, the proprietor, “White” Jack Stetly pushed through the watchers and looked from Joe to Fu Chen. A silence had fallen on the group.
“Who’s winner?” asked Stetly.
“Fu Chen,” snarled Joe, rising in disgust. “Twice he beat me to it. He’s lucky to-night.”
Fu Chen leaned across the table.
“You shootee some?” he inquired of Stetly. “I got two thousand dol-lar. You shootee high, maybe?”
White Jack laughed and caressed a pink chin.
“Take it away, Fu Chen. Dis is a gambling joint. It ain’t no charity joint. The gate’s good enough for me. I roll square—see? And I ain’t going to buck your luck.”
Stetly grinned. It would not pay the house to risk a week’s gate on the fall of dice in a Chinaman’s bowl. But a new-comer appeared at his side. Fu Chen recognized the man as one who had come in the touring-car.
“They say there’s a big game here, Jack,” he nodded. “What’s on?”
Stetly indicated Fu Chen.
“He’s got a roll and wants to play two thousand cold. Two outer three shots. I won’t touch it.”
The stranger glanced swiftly at the expectant Fu Chen. He was a big man, well dressed, with a heavy-weight sparkler in his tie.
“For the holy love of God!” he swore. “You going to let that good coin get by you? And a Chinaman at that? I’ll call his bluff.”
The speaker beckoned to his friends. A brief consultation, and three of the auto party produced eighteen hundred in cash between them. Fu Chen had not meant to bluff. He handed his money to Stetly, motioning for the other to do the same.
White Jack pocketed the bills. Word of the bet spread through the room and the other tables were forsaken while men elbowed for standing room about Fu Chen and his adversary.
Fu Chen touched the big man on the arm.
“We get ’em dice White Jack,” he explained. “All light?”
The other hesitated. He had some dice of his own. But Stetly nodded.
“Fair enough—an’ square enough,” he approved. “Nobody’s going to put up a yell about fake dice.” He tossed a pair into the bowl. “Get to it, boys.”
The big man shrugged his shoulders. Taking the dice, he offered them to Fu Chen, who clutched them eagerly and threw. This was the manner in which the Chinaman had gambled for a lifetime—the manner in which his father had won or lost copper string cash in the gambling places of Soo-Chow. And Fu Chen, that night, felt his luck was good.
He won the first throw.
While the men about him shoved nearer, and White Jack watched sharply, Fu Chen tossed the tiny cubes into the worn bowl and bent over them with a hiss of indrawing breath. His black eyes snapped as he saw two sixes.
“Hell!” grunted his opponent. He eyed his own effort, a two and nine, surlily, and wheeled on the proprietor. “For the love of God! This Chink’s thrown high four times—twice. I’d like to know—”
“Wid my dice,” said White Jack evenly, “he throws square—see? Fu Chen gets the coin. He put up his own coin against it. Likewise he gets outer here alone. Nobody leaves until five minutes after he’s gone wid the four thousand. Understand?”
They understood. Fu Chen took his money and departed, without being trailed. He slipped from the saloon into an alley that led to Pell Street. From there he struck due west, almost at a run.
His gait was uneven, and he was smiling. Men who saw him thought that he was drunk. They were right, partly. Fu Chen was intoxicated. But not with liquor.
At ten o’clock the next morning when Robert Harding entered his office at McKestry & Squires, he found Fu Chen waiting beside his desk. Fu Chen wore his best clothes and the derby hat. He had been there, he admitted, an hour. He showed no indication of the sleepless night he had spent.
“Got that twenty?” asked Harding. He smiled grimly, thinking of the change in his fortunes that had made twenty dollars from Fu Chen important. He, also, had not slept that night.
The Chinaman put an envelope on Harding’s desk. It was the same that the salesman had given him, with the money, yesterday. “Yes, Mr. Bob,” he said. Then, as Harding made no move to touch the money. “You count ’em.”
Harding took up the envelope. Then he stared. Instead of twenty dollars, there was a pile of hundreds and tens in his hand. He glanced up in surprise at the smiling Fu Chen.
“You have ’em,” observed that individual complacently. “Two thousand dollar.”
Harding fingered the money and shook his head.
“I told you, Fu Chen, I couldn’t take your money. Thanks, just the same, but—”
“Look!” suggested Fu Chen. He dived into a pocket and displayed a second thick roll of bank-notes, as many or more than the first. While Harding frowned in bewilderment, he explained. “I make the big play, Mr. Bob. Hundled-one chance. Last night.” He nodded shrewdly. “Loulette gamble. The ball, him come—”
Fu Chen’s arm made a graphic circle and another, narrowing to a stop over the desk. His black eyes gleamed, and he moistened his lips as if in after relish of the supreme sensation that had been his.
“The ball him come my place. I put your twenty dol-lar on gamble table. They pay me two thousand dol-lar. It belong you, Mr. Bob. You have ’em.”
Harding’s glance sought and held the Chinaman’s. Fu Chen met his look calmly. A wiser man than Harding could not have read the thoughts behind the black eyes and wrinkled brow. It was Harding’s money, repeated Fu Chen. It had been his twenty dollars. Fu Chen knew that, explained in this way, his friend must take the money without further argument.
Harding drew a deep breath. “Thanks,” he said. He was going to say more, but the Chinaman was gone.
Straight to his laundry went Fu Chen. He removed his shoes, collar, and hat, and donned black silk blouse and slippers. He put his ironing Board in place, and the irons on the stove.
When they were heated, Fu Chen bent over his work. He had lost several hours, and there were many clothes to be laundered.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1962, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 61 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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