Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-07-24

-Four Tons. as We all called him up for
ward. although he wasn't much larger
than pint of scouse boiled down. was the
s!ckest and at the same time the squarest
Chink that L ever came up with and that's
saying a whole lot. for in the nine years
that / put in the China station l ran
against some pretty smooth pigtails, who
for all their smoothness were just as much
on the level just as willing to give you a
fair throw for your money. and at the
time every bit as game. as the very
best of Us whose hides white.
-Four Tons was man-of-war cabin cook.
probably the best ore in the navy; the
shippers considered him so. anyhow. and
every time his three years enlistment was
VI and h" went ashore to blow in his pay
day before taking on again, he didn't have
any peace for the overtures that were con-
SANITY made to him the part of this
and that man-of-war commander who
wanted Four Tons TO ship for cabin cook
ON his boat. The Chinaman didn't
pay any attention to such overtures: when
he had shot in his payday wad-lnd he
certainly was the hottest spender L ever
KNEW, white or yellow-and it came time
for him to ship over. he'd take of
those camel's hair brushes that the Cbinks
use for pens. and paint the of all
the ships he particularly favored perhaps
a hall dozen or so, on slips of tissue paper.
these slips in the air. and the one tn 1t lit
the groun1 first was the name of the ship
he'd eject to cook on for three years. II
didn't make any difference if the ship he
thus picked out already had shippers
cook or not. all Four Tons had to do was
TO walk over the sangway and present him
self to the commanding officer; the conf
randinS officer would ship Fodr Tons as
his cook instanter. and make arrangements
on the spot to transfer the galley man he
already had TO some other ship. Although
for nearly twenty years Four Tons Id the
reputation of infiicting :he govt on every
man-of-war skipper he ever cooked .or.
they all appeared to just want 10 get the
govt. and it's certain that Four Tons never
ielt u ship that the commanding officer
Hidn't waddle around the deck with an in
ronsolable look for long time aftcrward
Az n Poker Player.
But didn't start to tell YOU about this
Chinaman's hardness as a galley artist,
for. warm as he was in that business he
got his biggest reputation in the navy for
an entirely different kind of ability. and
lhar Was as poker player. Four Tons
was the greatest poker artist that an
Swer"d MS name at muster in the United
States navy. He had genius for the
game H. had that odd instinct that tells
MIN just when to bluff and to bluff hard
and when throw his hand into the dis
card. ard he had that instinct so big and
strong, and for so long time. that used
TO often look at him and wonder if after ali
the tribe H. belonged to didn't really have
h.dNy call on the whites in being prac-
tical mind readers Four Tons seemed to
Just know what the man the other side
of the corkins mat had in mis- hand; and
during all the years that / watched his
styl~ of play | never saw him get called on
serious bluff.
1T was enc of Four Tons principles not
TO play cards aboard ship: and even ashore
he would not play to win his shipmates'
money He would always out the
open game IT any port We struck. and he
Gil r1t hesitate to go up against any gang
OF strangers in game of draw: if they
undertook ia work fancy tricks him ne
would DO little work in that line himself
with face wooden as gate, that they
couldn't So into all: but he always play
ei strictly on the level when he that
h. was not himself being given the worst
of it: ard III level game this world didn't
hold a man that knew more about the
scienc" and the percentages of poker than
-Four Tons
Up against II.
''In the latter part of 81 three four
dozen OF us went ashore at Montevideo-it
was when We first struck the South At
lanJic station on our return from China.
Four Tons was with party. For sew
eral days previously he had spent several
hours a day on the beach doing the skip
per marketing, and each time he had
turned to the ship in rather s,udious
frame of mind 1t seems that he had
tf-se marketing expeditions, and. although
h" hadn't been loser any. ne was studying
Cut scheme to beat the gang who had
tTi~d everything but sandbags and blunder-
bUSses to beat him. So when he our
BIZ liberty party going off to the beach
h saw his chance, and went off with u.s.
" hen got to the shore and were I'M
lca.ie|i from the steam cutter Four Tons
whispered to me 10 bring the gang out to
WIN garden he knew of on the outskirts of
NIntcvfdeo, and as / saw by his manner
tn. he had something on hand. and he
haG done a whole lot of favors when
I needed EN-. l steered the whole lot of
Or fellows 20 Four Tons place.
was one of those jungleS. with tables
an benches scattered around. where the
periie down iii that country DO their open
All drinking and watch out for scorpions
ar "sut.p"'i,s at the same time. There
W Il two-story 'dobe shack in the middle
OF rhc g3rG n almost hidden by tall cocoa
M pains. and into this -Four Tons disao-
p. red soon as got there. Before he
v. at in. however. H. whispered TO me to
Il p The gang in the garden as he might
n..-i After while few dozen men
from British man-ofwar came into the
garden. some of them heap ugly druk
aud As | wanted 10 get gang out of
II" ;SarCiea before the inevitable beginning
o. The h. III smashing-and | was only con-
ri Herring the British chaps' carcasses at
tEat-I slipped into the 'dobe hut to tell
-Four Tons that were going and to
ask him 20 come along
Trouble Brewing
1T did not take me long when went I'M
TO The second ioor of the mud shanty to
Sc that there kind of suppressed
strain between Four Tons and the three
evil b"ach-combing plunderers he was
PATCHING his game of draw against and
50 L didn't say anything. but lust looked
o. Two of the Chinaman's opponents
y ere 'ouSh-looking half Indian ombreys
With long cow-puncher hair: they jabbered
a sort o: greascr Spanish that sounded
more like kanaka than anything else and
each D! en- had a good-sized sack of ALI
Kinds OF metal gold money that was eyer
nade-American. English. French, Java
Lese. samples of all the yellow stuff tuat
drifts down that way. The other plaver
Vas one of those bad. shifty-eyed. no-ac-
count hut game cockneys that you run up
AGAINST on the beach in every part of the
world.
Now | was myself always more or less
o. a dub at the game of poker: but II didn't
,ske me eight seconds to see that these
three beach-ccmbers were playing in col
irs!on against our ships ChInk; and nj first
II d!dl|t make me any the less mad 10 see
that 10 was gradually losing his pile with
e sui.e'sss innocence that seemed to in
n ~.