The Coolidge examiner., 1932-08-05
HEARTBREAK
HOUSE
By FANNIE HURST
&c by Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.)
(WNU Seryice)


T ADY tourists with Baedekers
and misanthropic men with
sufficient income TO retire and
live cheaply on pensions along the
resplendent coast of the Riviera, are
given to sentimentally referring to
the gambling casino at Monte Carlo
as "Heartbreak House"
Well, there can be no doubt that
out of this storied mansion of
chance armies of men and women
have stumbled to tragedy Of one
sort or another.
The case of Gentleman Dawes
was one that stood out even on the
crowded ledgers of the debit stories
that checker up the past Of the bril-
liant little principality, which is
set like a painted drop-curtain
against the incredible foreground
of the Mediterranean.
Gentleman Dawes came to Monte
Carlo at the age of forty-five, from
a town In Colorado where he had
amassed a fortune of five hundred
thousand dollars in a staple mercan-
tile business. His visit to Monte
Carlo was more or less accidental,
nothing more than part of a tour
along the French Riviera, during
his first trip abroad, after his re-
tirement from the business TO
which he had devoted thirty-fve
years of his life. 1t was literally
his first vacation, the rather typical
case of a self-made American try
ing to learn how TO play.
In Dawes case this was difficult.
Thirty-five years that included his
early boyhood of toeing the mark
TO routine, business responsibility,
heavy decisions and the growing
burdens Of success, had produced a
prematurely white, socially timid,
and wholly unplayful individual.
Shy to a degree that made him ap-
pear suave, delicate as a woman In
manner, exhibiting none of those ag-
gressive qualities which had made
him a success in business, the mid
dle-aged, well-dressed, easy-spend-
ing American, who drifted I'M
Monte Carlo, was just one more un-
remarkable member of his pleasant
tribe.
One week later, however, Gentle
man Dawes, as he was dubbed over
night, was not only the talk Of the
the gossipy Riviera, but the Ameri-
can press, with especial emphasis
in his home city, carried the ever
tragic and dramatic story of man
who had gambled away large for
tune to the banks OF Monte Carlo.
In exactly eight days, Dawes had
lost TO the green baize tables the
sum OF four hundred and eighty-fve
thousand dollars. 1t was one Of
those spectacular debacles which
happen every so often In the little
unreal principality along the sea.
When he walked into the brilliant
gaming salons his first night at
Monte Carlo, something inside Her
mann Dawes which had never be
fore been stirred, caught fire. For
the first time In a bachelor life of
hard work, lonely leisure, insular
pastimes, he tasted the winey
pleasures of chemin-de-fer, bac-
carat, roulette; shifted the exciting
dust Of chance, experienced the un-
tellable thrill that catches a man at
the pit of the stomach, as he places
gold In the lap of fate. Within
two hours after his arrival, Dawes,
who had never gambled in his life,
discovered that he was gambler !;
Dawes, whose business success was
due to his conservatism, and who
had never even turned a playing
card, found himself on the way to
becoming a tragedy of Monte Carlo.
After that, his case went the way
of many before him. Broken, broke.
dazed by devastation, lacking the
impulse and the courage to return
home, the next fourteen years of
his life were to be spent within
the white shadow of the house of
! his doom.
Monte Carlo has a way of max
ing a bow to these derelicts of hers.
| She does not cast them off as ruth
lessly as the storied legends 90. For
those fourteen years of his life,
every month, out of the Golfers of
the gambling house, there came to
the bowed little gentleman living in
a back-street pension of the town
of his undoing, an allotment of five
hundred francs. Scarcely enough
to keep his body and soul together,
but an assurance, at least, of his
board and keep. Twenty dollars a
month, for a man whose fingers had
once closed over the reassuring for
tune of five hundred thousand dol
lars. To abet that, he obtained a
position as night elevator operator
in one of the large hotels. Auto
matically, then, since no employee
in the city of Monte Carlo may play
ctal-oc ot tho pamipO tab1ac +h;c