# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 37/Number 3/The Recalcitrant Mr. Cray

From the Red Book magazine, 1921 July, pp. 55–58, 100, 102, 104. Accompanying illustrations by Raeburn Van Buren may be omitted. [Mr. Cray]
THE RECALCITRANT MR. CRAY
Another adventure of the trouble-finding and venturesome Mr. Cray of the U.S. A.
Illustrated by RAEBURN VAN BUREN
By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
“I have the name,” she con- tinued,“of being a man-hater. I am nothing of the sort.”
MR. JOSEPH P. CRAY was exceedingly comfortable on board the steamship Omata, homeward bound from Toulon to Tilbury. His stateroom was very much to his liking, the boat was clean and not overcrowded.
The people on board, mostly Anglo-Indians holding official positions, were perhaps a little unsociable, and preserved for the most part that reserved demeanor usual amongst travelers who have had the ship to themselves throughout the voyage towards intruders who have embarked at the last port of call. Nevertheless, Mr. Cray, who had been asked to take a vacant place at the Captain's table, found no lack of society. There was a compatriot of his own, a manufacturer of reapers, who had just paid an extended and profitable visit to the east, and who was always ready to talk business or to recount his doings in some of the more adventurous cities; also a young invalided officer from the Indian Army, with his delicate sister, an interesting but rather pathetic couple, who had seemed grateful for Mr. Cray's cheerful conversation. There was also a middle-aged lady, returning from her travels, who boasted that she had been in every country of the world—a stalwart and determined-looking personage, who usually wore masculine clothes, and who had looked from the first with eves of distinct favor upon Mr. Cray's obvious opulence. This lady, in fact—Mrs. Richard Green by name—threatened to be the only drawback to an exceedingly pleasant five days. Already Mr. Cray was taking note of her advances with a vague uneasiness.
“You seem to me, Mr. Cray,” she said, dragging her chair over to his side on the evening after his arrival, “to be a man who is in need of sympathy.”
Mr. Cray looked at her furtively. She wore a gray felt hat, perfectly unadorned, jammed down over her head; her tweed skirt barely reached halfway between her knees and her sturdy ankles. Her eyes, perhaps her best feature, were dark and brilliant. Her cheek-bones were a little high, her jawbone bespoke determination. She was not a woman to be trifled with.
“We all need that,” Mr. Cray assented weakly. “I guess I get on pretty well, though.”
“I suppose you think you do,” Mrs. Green rejoined reprovingly. “You men never know when you're well off and you never know when you're badly off. You're a poor sort of creatures, anyhow, to go wandering about the world by yourselves.”
“I'm not always alone,” Mr. Cray protested.
“And who is your traveling companion when you are not?” she demanded.
“Sometimes my wife.”
Mrs. Green glared at him ferociously.
“So you are a married man?”
“I am,” Mr. Cray admitted, feeling, for the first time for many years, comfortably resigned to the fact.
“Where's your wife, then?” his neighbor demanded.
“In Indiana, U. S. A.,” Mr. Cray replied. “She prefers to remain there.”
Mrs. Green seemed somewhat mollified. Indiana, U. S. A., was a long way off.
“And meanwhile you go gadding about with any hussy who happens to smile at you?” she asked sternly.
“I don't think that's quite fair,” Mr. Cray protested. “Young ladies are very pleasant companions sometimes, but—”
“I saw that yellow-headed minx making googly eyes at you at dinner last night,” Mrs. Green declared. “Just the sort of baggage you men find attractive, I suppose.”
“I don't even know whom you mean,” Mr. Cray expostulated.
“Calls herself a colonel's wife!” Mrs. Green scoffed.
Mr. Cray brought up his reserves.
“What about your husband?” he inquired.
“Dead,” was the uncompromising reply. “I buried him fourteen years ago. Since then I have led a lonely life.”
“You must have done some wonderful traveling,” Mr. observed.
“I have indeed,” she admitted. “I have been into countries where no woman has ever before set foot. I have shown the world what courage can do. Although I have traveled alone and unprotected, no man has ever dared to molest me.”
“You must be very brave,” Mr. Cray ventured
“The man who raised his hand against me would be braver still,” she asserted.
“I can well believe it,” he agreed fervently.
“At the same time,” she continued, after a moment's pause, during which Mr. Cray had been taking notice of her square-toed, masculine shoes and her thick worsted stockings, “I am free to admit that the time has come when I am a little weary. I propose to settle down in London, make friends and lead a domestic life. For the first time in many years I find myself free and disposed to seek companionship.”
“Very agreeable,” Mr. Cray murmured.
“I have the name,” she continued, edging her chair a little closer to his, “of being a man-hater. I am nothing of the sort.”
Mr. Cray expressed his relief.
“We're pretty harmless, take us all round,” he ventured.
“You may or may not be,” the lady replied. “I have never allowed a man to take any liberties with me. I don't trust them. At the same time,” she went on, “a man has his place in a woman's life, and because I have chosen to keep him outside mine for the last fourteen years, that does not necessarily mean that I intend to preserve the same attitude for the rest of my life. Indeed, the contrary is the case. I intend to cultivate men friends.”
Esholt was deathly pale. “I have your four aces, sir, he announced. “I kept three and a kicker.”
“You may marry,” Mr. Cray suggested.
Mrs. Richard Green looked at him very hard.
“I may,” she admitted. “On the other hand, I may not. I am a woman who is free from all prejudices. Travel has broadened my mind. My outlook is different from other women's. Marriage has its advantages and disadvantages. Besides, the person whom I might choose,” she went on, still looking fixedly at Mr. Cray, “might be a married man.”
“Sure!” Mr. Cray assented, a little shaken. “There are many who aren't, though,” he went on with a sudden access of cheerfulness, “—in fact, London's full of them. Never knew a place where there were so many middle-aged bachelors.”
“When I fix my affections upon a man,” Mrs. Green said firmly, “his state will make no difference to me. Married or single, I shall have him. If the law cannot join us, I shall make my own law. That is the sort of woman I am, Mr. Cray. That is the sort of spirit which has brought me safely through savage countries.”
Mr. Cray made frantic signals of distress to the manufacturer of reapers, who was just passing. The latter responded like a man.
“We are waiting for you forward, Mr. Cray,” he announced. “Number one is in the shaker.”
Mr. Cray struggled hastily to extricate himself from the rug which enveloped his lower limb:
“I'll be with you right along,” he declared, staggering to his fee “You'll excuse me, Mrs. Green.”
“And what may this number one signify?” the lady asked disapprovingly.
“Our first cocktail before dinner,” Mr. Cray explained. “I guess I'm rather a sinner so far as that sort of thing is concerned,” he went on, guilefully. “I try to keep myself down to three before dinner, but it's very often five or even six.”
“It is a habit of which you must be broken,” Mrs. Green said sternly.
Mr. Cray staggered off. He passed his arm through his friend's. With the other hand he felt his forehead, half expecting to find drops of perspiration there.
“That's some woman!” he declared.
His companion grinned.
“I heard her asking questions about you. She's got your number all right. Said she liked your mild voice and your complexion.”
“Let's get right into the bar,” Mr. Cray insisted nervously.
AT dinner-time that evening Mr. Cray received a further shock. In the chair exactly opposite his own, which had been vacant since Toulon, he discovered Mrs. Richard Green.
“I have changed my place,” she announced. “I thought I should like to come to your table.”
The Captain, seated a few places away, smiled. The young invalid officer exchanged a glance of amusement with his sister. The manufacturer of reapers, who was at a table some distance away, telegraphed his congratulations across the room. Mr. Cray, without knowing exactly why, felt his savoir faire deserting him. The fact that he ate his soup in stony silence did not seem in any way to trouble his opposite neighbor. She eyed with calm and proprietary approbation his well-fitting and carefully brushed clothes, his very handsome pearls and well-tied scarf. She herself was appearing in very different guise. Her skirt was still of the order called serviceable, but she wore a blouse of a shimmery magenta color, long amber earrings, and a necklace of uncut stones of barbaric character. Her bobbed black hair defied attempt at ornamentation, but in the front it showed signs of straying over her massive forehead in the form of a fringe. Mr. Cray, notwithstanding his qualms, could scarcely keep his eyes off her. The muscular development of her arms was wonderful. She ate her dinner with the calm and healthy appetite of a woman sure of herself and her path in life. The captain made a polite effort to engage her in conversation.
“They tell me, Madam,” he said, “that you have been a great traveler.”
“I have visited every country on the globe,” she replied. “I have faced savages, wild animals, and foreign dinner-parties. I am now on my way home to settle down.”
SHE looked hard at Mr. Cray, who writhed.
“You will be writing another book of travels, I suppose?” the Captain remarked.
“In due course,” Mrs. Green assented.
The Captain, who felt that he had done his duty, turned to another of his neighbors. The young officer addressed Mr. Cray.
“You are just from the Riviera, sir, are you not?” he inquired.
“From Monte Carlo,” Mr. Cray told him.
Mrs. Green frowned slightly.
“I look upon the Riviera,” she declared, “as a place for idle people to indulge their extravagant habits. A most enervating climate, too.”
Cray remembered that he was a man, and a citizen of the United States.
“I would sooner spend the winter in Monte Carlo than anywhere else in the world,” he said firmly.
Mrs. Green showed no signs of annoyance. Her smile, indeed, was maddeningly tolerant.
“Well,” she remarked, “under certain conditions I dare say I should be inclined to modify my impressions of the place. I have no conscientious objections to a little mild gambling. I occasionally indulge in a game of cards myself. But extravagance is a vice to which I have the strongest objection.”
“Extravagance,” Mr. Cray pronounced, “is what you might term a relative quality. In my younger days I worked hard and established a successful business. I have only one daughter and no other near relatives. It gives me pleasure to spend my money.”
“A very bad example to others,” Mrs. Green said severely.
“Guess the others can take care of themselves,” Mr. Cray observed. “I was never meant to be a shining light.”
“What you need—” Mrs. Green began portentously.
“Is another pint of that champagne, James,” Mr. Cray interrupted valiantly, turning to the steward. “Madam,” he added, looking across the table, “I confess that I am a black sheep. I have every bad habit under the sun—and I like my bad habits.”
Mrs. Green was sorrowful but unperturbed.
“You are a very interesting man,” she declared, toying with her huge beads and smiling across the table. “I am seriously thinking of taking you in hand.”
Mr. Cray's heart sank within him. The woman was like a colossus. Nothing could move her. He had the sensations of a man pursued by some irresistible force. Mrs. Green lifted her voice, and laid down beneficent but somewhat arbitrary laws as to how a man should live. Mr. Cray listened in rebellious silence.
“Your great country, Mr. Cray,” she wound up, “has shown the world what it thinks of liquor.”
“Because they cheated,” he answered gravely.
“In her way she has,” Mr. Cray acknowledged. “In my small way, I shall continue to show the world what I think of it. Steward, hurry up with that wine.”
Mrs. Green shook her head but her smile was indulgent.
“Obstinate!” she murmured. “We will have a little talk after dinner, Mr. Cray. I will make you a little coffee up on deck.”
“I never drink coffee,” her victim lied. “I always take brandy after my meals.”
“In time,” Mrs. Green warned him, “the indulgence in spirits to that extent will completely destroy the lining of your stomach.”
“Mine,” Mr. Cray assured her recklessly, “is lined with asbestos.”
“You remind me,” she said pensively, “of a black man on the west coast of Africa, whom I treated with medicine of my own concoction. His sufferings were terrible.”
“I can well believe it,” Mr. Cray assented fervently.
“Nevertheless, I cured him,” she continued, with a note of triumph in her tone. “He died soon afterwards of another complaint. Curiously enough, his savage relatives were so incensed against me that I had to leave the neighborhood before I had concluded my notes on my visit.”
Mr. Cray gulped down his wine, bowed to the Captain and stood up.
“Guess it's a bit close down here,” he muttered. “I'll take a turn on deck, and a cigar.”
MR. CRAY was, without doubt, in some respects a weak man. He had conceived a positive dislike for Mrs. Richard Green, and he had abandoned a certain portion of his dinner sooner than be tormented any longer by her conversation. Yet when, a quarter of an hour later, by a strategic flank movement she ran him to earth in a retired portion of the ship, he was utterly unable to say those few rude but firm words which he had been repeating to himself ever since his escape.
“I have set the coffee machine going,” she announced, “and the steward is bringing us some cups. I am making it a little stronger than usual on your account. If you feel in the least unsteady, let me take your arm.”
“I am quite all right, thank you,” Mr. Cray assured her. “You'll excuse me if I seem ungracious, but coffee always keeps me awake.”
“Mine wont,” was the firm reply. “If you stay awake tonight it will be because of the wine you've drunk, or because you've something on your conscience. Mind that coil of rope.”
Mr. Cray was on the point of surrender when a savior appeared. The invalided young officer emerged from the smoke-room and touched him on the arm.
“We are waiting for you, Mr. Cray,” he announced. “You haven't forgotten our little game of poker?”
Mr. Cray's wit was as ready as his sense of relief was great.
“I will not sit down,” was the uncompromising reply. “I came here to say a few words and I speak better standing.”
“For the moment I had forgotten it,” he confessed. “I must ask you to excuse me, ma'am. I have promised to play poker with these boys.”
Mr. Cray dived into the smoking-room and Mrs. Green went on towards where her coffee machine was simmering upon the deck.
“You're a good Samaritan,” the former declared. “I don't know what's got that woman, but she's a terror. Why, you've got a little game of poker,” he went on in a tone of surprise, as he noticed three other young men seated at a table in a corner of the room, counting out chips.
His companion assented.
“It's a very small game,” he explained, as he led the way. “My name is Esholt—Captain Esholt—just invalided out and going home to look for a job. My three friends are Mr. Graham, Captain Thomson and Mr. Leach.”
The three shook hands with Mr. Cray, who sat down genially amongst them and gave lavish orders to the expectant steward. They were all very much of the same type as Esholt himself. One of them had been in the Indian Army with Esholt, and the other two, after a period of service, one in Mesopotamia and the other in Egypt, had recently been demobilized.
“We play quite a small game,” Captain Esholt repeated, a little nervously. “The fact of it is we are all of us pretty hard up. We ante two shillings, if you don't mind.”
“Quite enough,” Mr. Cray agreed. “I like a small game. I'll take five pounds' worth of chips. What's the limit, anyway?”
“Well, we've never made one,” the other replied. “We just double, and we don't get very far on that. Straddle when you like, and pots for jacks or better.”
“Let her go,” Mr. Cray declared, lighting a fresh cigar. “Just the sort of game I like.”
The game proceeded for some time with varying fortunes. Mr. Cray, aware of a certain tenseness on the part of his companions, which seemed to him inexplicable in view of the smallness of the stakes, played with an indifference which resulted, as is usually the case, in his steadily winning. During one of those brief periods when he was out of the game, he leaned back and took stock of his fellow-players, curiously at first and then sympathetically. They were all apparently under thirty, they were all either slightly maimed or with partially broken health. Esholt had already confided to him his fears as to securing a berth with his old company and neither of the others seemed much more sanguine as to his chances of making a fresh start in life. Mr. Cray looked down at his chips and wondered how to get rid of them. Presently he found out.
Esholt was the dealer, Thomson was next to him, and Mr. Cray next. Mr. Cray straddled Thomson's ante, and these two and the dealer alone remained in. Thomson took one card, Mr. Cray kept an ace and drew four. Esholt bet, Thomson doubled. Mr Cray, picking up his cards, found that amongst the four he had drawn were three more aces. He doubled again and Esholt went out. Thomson hesitated. The amount now in front of him was sixteen shillings, and it required another sixteen to see Mr. Cray.
“I'd go quietly, young man, if I were you,” the latter warned him. “I've the biggest hand we've seen tonight.”
There was a spot of color in Thomson's pale cheeks. He looked at Mr. Cray with a queer little twitch of the lips.
“I don't want to know about your hand,” he said roughly. “How do I know you're not bluffing? Any way, I'm seeing your thirty-two and raising it the same.”
“Sixty-four to see, eh?” Mr. Cray remarked. “Well, make it a hundred and twenty-eight.”
“Two hundred and fifty six,” was the prompt rejoinder.
“Sorry,” Mr. Cray replied, “five hundred and twelve.”
“Fifty pounds,” Thomson almost shouted.
Mr. Cray shrugged his shoulders.
“Fifty pounds,” he declared, “is a great deal of money at this little game. I shall call you.”
He laid down his four aces. Thomson, with trembling fingers, spread out the two, three, four, five, six of spades. Mr. Cray, after a moment's amazed silence, laughed good-naturedly and produced his pocketbook.
“I congratulate you, young man,” he said. “You were in luck to find me with such a big hand.”
He paid out the notes and the game proceeded. For three or four rounds nothing in particular occurred. Then, when again it was Esholt's deal, and the first of a round of jack-pots, Mr. Cray found himself with a pair of kings.
“I open for four shillings,” he announced.
“Make it eight,” Esholt declared, looking at his cards.
Every one came in. Thomson took three cards, glanced at them and threw in his hand. Mr. Cray took three, and found himself with another king and a pair of aces. Graham on his left, took three; Leach one; Esholt hesitated, picked up his cards again, fingered the pack uncertainly, and then took one. Mr. Cray sat for a moment quite still. He seemed to forget that he was playing.
“You to bet, sir,” Thomson reminded him.
Mr. Cray glanced at the chips in front of him.
“Twenty-four shillings,” he said mechanically.
“Forty-eight,” from Graham.
“Ninety-six!”—from Leach.
“A hundred and ninety-two,” Esholt declared, glancing at his cards and laying them down again.
“I'm away,” Thomson grumbled. “Just my luck with a big pot.”
Mr. Cray sat quite still for another few moments. Again he seemed to be suffering from a sort of mental paralysis He roused himself with an effort.
“Three hundred and eighty-four,” he said at last.
Graham hesitated and threw in reluctantly. Leach did the same.
“Double!” Esholt declared.
They all looked at Mr. Cray. He was steadily watching Esholt.
“Twice three hundred and eighty-four a great deal of money,” he said. “However, I must see you, Captain Esholt.”
He laid down upon the table his “full house.” Esholt turned over his cards one by one. He was deathly pale.
“I have your four aces, sir,” he announced. “I kept three and a kicker.”
Mr. Cray looked at the cards for a moment and nodded slowly.
“Twice three hundred and eighty-four are seven hundred and sixty-eight,” he calculated—“that is thirty-eight pounds, eight shillings.”
He counted out forty pounds from his pocketbook, received the change and replaced the book in his pocket. Then he rose to his feet.
“If you boys will excuse me,” he said, “I guess I'll just take a turn on deck. The atmosphere in here is a trifle thick. I'll be with you again presently. You can leave me out for a deal or two.”
AMIDST a nervous and portentous silence, Mr. Cray left the room. He walked slowly along the deck, heedless of the drizzling rain and the wind. He was depressed and miserable, yet at that moment it seemed to him that only one course was possible. He was within a few yards of the door of the Captain's room when he heard light footsteps behind him and felt his arm grabbed. He turned around to find Blanche Eskolt by his side, her hair streaming in the wind, her lips parted, her eyes filled with half-terrified curiosity.
“Have you finished playing, Mr. Cray?” she asked.
“For the present,” he answered lifelessly.
“Where are you going now?”
“I was just stepping in to say good evening to the Captain.”
Her fingers were still gripping his arm. She drew him to the rail of the ship. Mr. Cray found himself welcoming these few moments' respite.
“Tell me about the game,” she begged.
“I would rather not,” he replied.
“Did they win?” she faltered. “Those boys, I mean—Dick and the others?”
“Yes, they won,” he admitted.
“Much?”
“Getting on for a hundred pounds. I was just going to see the Captain about it.”
“Why?” she almost screamed.
Mr. Cray glanced around to be sure that they were not overheard.
“Because they cheated,” he answered gravely.
She commenced to sob then. She was incoherent, but somehow or other she managed to tell her story.
“I knew they'd be found out,” she declared. “It was the stupidest, most idiotic thing. Mr. Cray, will you believe me when I tell you something?”
“I guess so,” he promised.
“There isn't one of those boys,” she continued passionately, “has ever before done a dishonorable action. Jack Graham, Sidney Leach and Phil Thomson are all just in the same boat as Dick and I. They gave up their work for the war and they can't pick it up again. Not one of them has been able to find a reasonable job since. Dick and I haven't got fifty pounds between us, and not a soul in the world to look to, and the others are in the same box. They were talking it over the other night, and Phil Thomson said suddenly that he was tired of being honest, he meant to get the money to live on, somehow or other. Then the others joined in, and Dick explained how easy it was to cheat at cards. And then some one said you were a millionaire, and they've been practising this poker game in their staterooms every minute of the day since.”
Somehow, Mr. Cray's heart began to grow lighter. He patted the girl on the back, then he began to laugh.
“Miss Esholt,” he said, “I believe every word of what you have said. I never in all my life—and I've had some experience—saw such a darned poor, bungling attempt at cheating! Why, your brother don't know enough about palming cards to deceive the kids at a children's party, and that other young man, Thomson—why, he trembled like a baby when he showed his hands!”
“You wont go to the Captain?” she begged piteously.
“I will not,” he promised, “that is if my talk with the young men themselves is satisfactory.”
A DARK form loomed up through the shadows. A hand fell upon Mr. Cray's shoulder.
“I heard you were on deck, looking for me, Mr. Cray,” a familiar voice observed. 'I just went down for a moment to put on my goloshes.”
Mr. Cray was speechless. Blanche Esholt, conscious of her red eyes, stole away, a proceeding which Mrs. Green watched with satisfaction.
“A forward child, that,” she said. “Mr. Cray, I am sure you will be glad to know that I have decided to join your game of poker.”
“To do what?” Mr. Cray faltered.
“We will promenade for a moment,” she continued, propelling him along. “I feel that you do not altogether understand me, Mr. Cray. I am an independent woman—my life and training have made me so—but I am not averse to harmless recreations. I have played draw poker with the king of a dusky tribe of West Africans, and won from him two elephant tusks. I may even say that I am fond of the game. Some day I will teach you poker-solitaire.”
A tremendous idea commenced to dawn upon Mr. Cray. It developed slowly, however.
“You may lose your money, Mrs. Green,” he warned her. “These boys play very well.”
“On the other hand,” she replied, “I may win some. I am not afraid of my skill in any undertaking in which I may engage. At auction bridge I won four hundred rupees in Burmah. I was considered by everybody there a wonderful player.”
“I guess we'll start tomorrow night,” Mr. Cray suggested. “It's a trifle late—”
“We will start in ten minutes,” Mrs. Green pronounced. “I shall now go down to my stateroom and fetch some money. Kindly prepare the young gentlemen for my coming.”
Mrs. Green disappeared down the companionway, and Mr. Cray made his way back to the smoking-room. The four young men, in attitudes of profound dejection, were seated pretty well as he had left them, except that Blanche Esholt was on the settee by her brother's side. Added to the pile of chips which Mr. Cray had left, was the little roll of notes with which he had parted. Esholt rose to his feet as Mr. Cray approached.
“We couldn't have gone through with it, sir,” he confessed, “even if you hadn't found us out. There's your money. I can only say that we are sorry. We are entirely at your mercy.”
Mr. Cray stood by his chair. The steward had gone into the inner bar. It chanced that there was no one else in the room.
“Will you give me your word of honor, all of you,” he said, “never to attempt this sort of thing again?”
The reply was unanimous and convincing. Mr. Cray resumed his seat.
“Boys,” he proposed, “I guess we'd better call these chips in and start the game again. Mrs. Richard Green is coming to join us. Don't look so astonished, all of you. Give me the chips. I'm banker for the rest of this trip. Do your best to win, and we'll settle up on the last evening, and whatever you see that you don't understand—well, just put it, so to speak, in your forgettery. To pass the time until the lady arrives, I will now show you a few card tricks. I guess, when I've finished, you'll think it wise to forget the little you know about dealing.”
Mr. Cray kept his word, and when Mrs. Green, carrying a large reticule and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, entered the room with an air of determination and a smile meant to be ingratiating, he had reduced his little circle of watchers to a state of amazed stupefaction. He gathered up the cards at the lady's entrance.
“If you'll take this seat opposite me, ma'am,” he invited, “we'll make a start. I'm banker, and, if agreeable, I'll keep an account against you all till the end of the trip.”
Mrs. Green took the seat indicated, hung her reticule across the back of her chair, settled her spectacles firmly upon her nose, and counted the chips handed out to her, with the utmost care.
“The idea is excellent,” she said. “Let the game proceed.”
IT was the last evening of the voyage—the great steamship was, indeed, being slowly convoyed up the Thames in charge of a pilot. Mr. Cray and his young friends were seated in the corner of the smoking-room which they had occupied every evening. They were awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Green.
“Has any one seen the dear lady today?” Esholt asked.
“She came in to lunch an hour late and had dinner in her stateroom,” Mr. Cray announced with a grin. “I passed her on deck this morning but she seems to have become a trifle shortsighted.”
There was a little ripple of suppressed laughter.
“I notice that she's changed her place at table, too,” Thomson remarked.
Mr. Cray smiled beatifically.
“She gave the deck steward a shilling to put our chairs at the opposite end of the deck yesterday morning,” he confided.
“Poor Mr. Cray!” Blanche Esholt murmured.
The door was opened with a firm hand, and deliberately closed again. Mrs. Richard Green approached the table. Determination was engraved in every line of her forcible countenance. Gone were the magenta blouse, the barbaric beads, the earrings, those slight concessions to her sex designed to allure the recalcitrant Mr. Cray. She was dressed in the severe garb in which she proposed to land on the following morning—a plain suit of iron grey, a hard felt hat and square-toed shoes. She had the air of one confronted with an unpleasant duty, to the performance of which she was braced only from a high sense of principle and ethical resolve.
“Will you sit here, Mrs. Green?” Mr. Cray invited, rising and pointing to one of the swivel chairs.
“I will not sit down,” was the uncompromising reply. “I came here to say a few words and I speak better standing.”
Mr. Cray glanced at a list of figures which he held in his hand.
“Eighty-four pounds, seventeen, ma'am, you seem to owe,” he announced, with a slightly injured air. “The others have all paid up.”
“I, on the contrary,” Mrs. Green declared, “shall not pay.”
Mr. Cray's benevolent face assumed a remarkable change of expression. He looked at the speaker in pained surprise.
“Madam,” he protested, “this is a debt of honor.”
“A debt of dishonor I call it,” was the spirited retort. “I have consulted authorities upon the subject. I find that poker is an illegal game. I am surprised at you, sir,” she went on, directly addressing Mr. Cray, “a man of your age and with your experience of life, taking advantage of these young people here and stripping them ruthlessly of their—their pocket-money.”
“We don't complain,” Esholt intervened, with the air of a martyr.
“It was a fair game,” Thomson sighed.
“I've paid my bit, anyhow,” Leach murmured.
“The more fool you!” Mrs. Green declared, standing squarely upon her feet. “What the law of libel may be on board ship, I don't know and I don't care, but this much I'm here to say and I'll say it, and you can—any of you—treat the matter in any way you think fit. The whole of my money was lost whenever Mr. Cray dealt.”
“Do you insinuate, Madam—” Mr. Cray began.
“Shut up!” the lady interrupted. “You can speak when I've finished. That is the bald fact. Every time you dealt, I had a good hand and you had a better. You may be what you seem. I don't know. You handle the cards too slickly for my liking, and if you want to know my opinion of you, you can have it.”
“My dear Mrs. Green!” Mr. Cray faltered.
“Don't 'my dear' me!” that lady thundered, striking the table with her fist “I've formed my opinion of you, Mr. Cray. I believe you to be a professional gambler, and not one penny of my money do I part with.”
A sudden wave of emotion seemed to pass over the little company. Blanche Esholt's face was hidden in her handkerchief, Thomson's was buried in his arms. Mr. Cray himself was pained and humiliated.
“That is my decision,” Mrs. Green proclaimed, her tone gaining vigor and her manner becoming more triumphant as she noted the effect of her words. “Not one penny of my money shall I part with, and if I were you young people I would go to the Captain and force this person to disgorge. That is all I have to say. Except this,” she concluded turning to Mr. Cray. “Take my advice and turn over a new leaf. It is all very well to plunder children, but there are other men and women about with brains besides myself. Some day or other you will be in trouble, and if ever a witness is needed to testify against you, they can call up Mrs. Richard Green!”
SHE made a dignified and triumphant exit, but it was some minutes before Mr. Cray, wiping the tears from his eyes could obtain a hearing.
“Now I've just a word to say to you young people,” he began seriously. “I want you to understand that though I'm a professional gambler when it suits me I am also what Mrs. Green believed me to be when I came on board—a pretty wealthy man. I like you boys, and you've helped me through with this little stunt of eliminating Mrs. Green, gamely. Now I'm going to do something for you.”
There was a dead silence.
“I've been making a few inquiries and this is what I propose,” Mr. Cray continued. “We want help badly out at my works in Seattle, and if you, Graham and Thomson, care about taking it on, there are jobs for both of you waiting out there, with your passages paid and an advance on account of your salaries. You, Leach, I understand, were employed by the bank in London with whom I have pretty considerable dealings. You don't want to worry any more about your job there, for I guess you get it and you get it quick—within a day or so of our landing. And as for Esholt here, well, I've been away from London a pretty good spell, and I guess there'll be correspondence and business enough waiting sufficient for a couple of secretaries. So there we all are, and as I can't see that we've any of us got any particular worry on just now..... Steward, before you close the bar, please, a bottle of that Number Seventy-four.”
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 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 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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