Show I The Game Episode of Poker of the th tb the Che Schemes m S of ol I Colonel n 1 n 1 Clay lay II Copyright Coph BY 1907 GRANT by W ALLEN G Chapman Seymour my said with a n deep drawn sigh as we left leU Lake George next day by the Rensselaer ner 8 Saratoga railroad no more Pe Peter Peter ter Porter for me It If you please Im Imsick sick of disguises Now that we know Colonel Clay Is la here herc in America they serve no good purpose so I may as aswell well receive the social consideration and proper respect to which my rank and position naturally entitle me V And which they secure for the most part except from hotel clerks oven ovenIn ovenIn In this republican land I answered briskly V For in my humble opinion for sound snobbery nobber registered A 1 at Lloyds give me mc the freeborn American citizen We traveled through the st tes ac accordingly accordingly cordingly for the next four months from Maine to California and from Oregon to Florida chiefly under our own true names confirming the churches as Charles facetiously put It or in other words looking Into the management and control of railways syndicates mines and cattle ranches We Inquired about everything And the result of our investigations appear appeared ed to be ag as Charles further remarked that the Sab who so troubled the Sons of Job Tab seemed to have migrated In a body to t Kansas and Nebraska and that several thousand head of cat cattle cattle cattie tle tie seemed to mysteriously vanish a ala ala aIa la Ia Colonel Clay Into the pure air of the prairies just before each branding However we were fortunate In avoid avoiding avoiding ing the Incursions of the colonel him himself himself himself self who must have migrated mean meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile while on some carpet to oth other other er happy happ hunting grounds It was chill October before we found ourselves safely back in New York en cn route for England So longa long a term of freedom from the colonels depredations as Charles fondly imagined but I will not anticipate had done my brother I health and spirits a world of good he was so lively that he lie began to fancy his tormentor must have suc sue succumbed rum bed to yellow fever then raging in Ia New Orleans or eaten himself ill III illas Illas as we nearly did ourselves on a gen generous generous generous erous mixture of clam chowder terra terrapin terrapin terrapin pin soft shelled crabs Jersey peaches canvasback ducks Catawba wine win winter winter V ter cherries brandy brand cocktails straw strawberry strawberry strawberry V berry shortcake Ice creams corn dodger er and a judicious brew commonly known as a Colorado corpse reviver However that may be Charles re ye returned turned to New Now York In excellent trim and dreading in that great city the wiles viles of or his antagonist he cheerfully accepted accented the Invitation of his brother millionaire Senator of Ne Nevada Nevada Nevada vada to spend a few tew days before sail sailing sailing sailIng ing in tim the senators magnificent and L newly finished palace at the upper end 1 of Fifth avenue There at least I shall be safe Sey Soy he said salt to me plaintively with a weary smile at any rate wont try tr to take in except of f course In the regular way of business Boss Nugget hall ball as It Is popularly V christened Is perhaps the handsomest brown stone mansion In the Richard style on all Fifth avenue We spent a delightful week there The lines had fallen to us in pleasant places On the night we arrived Wren gold gave a small bachelor party In it I our honor bonor He knew Sir Charles was Wa I traveling without Lady and am I rightly Judged we would prefer on his hh 3 first night an Informal party part with I cards and cigars instead of being both bothered bothered ered cred with the charming but still some somewhat somewhat somewhat what hampering addition of female so society society clety The guests that evening were no more mon than seven s ven all told ourselves included include I making up said that per perfect perfect perfect number an octave He was a nou nouveau nouveau veau riche himself the newest of the th new commonly known In exclusive ol I fashioned New York society as the th S gilded squatter for he struck his hL S reef no more than ten years ago anc am and 1 he was IS therefore doubly anxious after r the American style to be Just lust dizzy r with culture In this capacity of Mae Maecenas Maecenas Maecenas cenas he be had invited among others the latest of English literary arrivals arrival g in New Sew York Mr Algernon I tho the famous poet and leader of oX the th e Briar BrI Rose school of ot west country fic fiction fiction fiction tion You know him in London of o I course he observed to Charles with witha I Ia a smile mile as we waited dinner for our ou r guests gUes gUesNo No Charles answered stolidly I have not had that honor We move moc you see SC In different circles I observed by a curious shade which I passed over Senator face ac that hE hf quite misapprehended my m moaning Charles Charle S Swished wished to convey convoy of course that Mr V belonged to a mere literary I and Bohemian set In London while he h himself moved on a more exalted plane of peers and politicians But the sen senator senator senator ator better b accustomed to t the new rich I point of view understood Charles to ti mean that he had bed not the entree of that tha t distinguished coterie in which Mr M lr V posed as a shining luminary Which naturally made him rate even i higher than before his literary acqui acquisition At two minutes past the hour the tb e poet entered Even if we had not been S already familiar with his portrait at atall ataU a t tall all aU ages in the Strand Magazine we w e 0 should have recognized him at once for fora fo r ra a genuine bard by his impassioned t eyes his delicate mouth the artistic artisti C twirl of one gray lock upon his expansive expansive expansive sive brow the grizzled d mustache that thai 1 gave point and force to the genie genial l smile and the two white ros roxa of per perfect perfect feet teeth behind It Most o our fel fellow fellow fellow low guests had met before at a reception given by he the Lotus club clu b bt t afternoon for tor the bard had reach reached reached reached ed New York but the previous evening BO so Charles and I were the only visitors visitor S who remained to be introduced to hW hf L The lion of the hour was attired In I a ordinary evening dress dres with no foppery I of ot any kind but he lie wore In his but buttonhole buttonhole buttonhole a dainty blue flower whose 0 name I do not know and as a he bowed bowe a distantly to Charles whom he sur surveyed surveyed surveyed through his eyeglass 5 the gleam gloat U of a big diamond In the middle of his hi S shirt front betrayed the tle tact fact that the th e Se Briar Rose school as it was called callec d dt from his famous epic epie had at least leas t succeeded in making money out of o f I poetry He explained to us a little la later a ater ter In fact that he was over in in New NewYork NewYork Ne V York to look after his royalties The beggars he said only gave gay 0 me ipe eight hundred pounds on my m last las t volume I stand that you yoi ou Ii know for a modern bard moving with i the age can only sing when duly duh V wound up so Ive run across to In Investigate Investigate Investigate Put a penny in the slot dont you see and the poet will pipe pip e for you Exactly like myself Charles said F V II finding inding f a point in common Im Tm in interested t In mines arid mId I too have hav come ome c over to look after royalties The poet placed his eyeglass In his eye e ye once more and surveyed Charles C Char arle es I deliberately d from head to foot Oh he h e murmured slowly He said not nota a w word ord more but somehow everybody every Ouy elt felt f that Charles was demolished I saw that when we went in i n to dinner hastily h tily altered the cards that hat t marked their places He had evi evl evidently evidently dently d put Charles at first to sit next t the he poet he varied that arrangement now n ov setting Algernon be between between tween t wen a railway king and a magazine editor e I have seldom seen my respect respected ed e d so completely si silenced l The Tha poets conduct during dinner dl was as most peculiar He kept quoting poetry it at a t inopportune moments Roast lamb or boiled turkey tUrl cy sir said aid s the footman Mary iraQ had a little lamb said the poet p 1 I shall imitate Mary r rCharles Charles and the senator thought the remark emark r undignified After dinner however under the mellowing influence of some excellent R derer Charles began to expand again gain a and grew lively and anecdotal The poet had made us all laugh not a little ittle l with various capital stories of London literary society at least two of them I think new ones and Charles was moved by generous emu emulation emulation lation l to contribute his own share to the amusement of the company He was in excellent cue He Is not often brilliant but when he chooses he has hasa a 8 certain dry vein of caustic humor which if is II decidedly funny though not perhaps without being vulgar On tins tIlls particular night then warmed with the thin admirable Wren gold champagne c the best made in America he h launched out In a full and em embroidered broidered I description of the various ways In which Colonel Clay had de do deceived deceived him I will not say that he nar narrated narrated rated them in full with the same frankness and accuracy that I have shown in these pages he lie suppressed not a few of at the most amusing details on oa no other ground apparently than because e they happened to tell t ll against himself and lie he enlarged a good deal dea dealon on the surprising cleverness with which several times he had nearly secured his hisman hisman hisman man but still stin making all allowances for tor native vanity in concealment and additions he was distinctly funny he represented the matter for once in its ludicrous rather than in its disastrous aspect He observed also al o looking around the table that after all he had lost less by Colonel Clay in four years of persecution than he lie often lost by one injudicious move in a single day dayon dayon dayon on the London stock exchange while he seemed teemed to imply to the iDe solid men of New York that he would cheerfully sacrifice such a fleabite as that in re to turn for foi the amusement and excite excitement e excitement cite ment of or the chase which the colonel had afforded him The poet was pleased You are a man of spirit Sir Charles he said I love to see this fine old English admiration of pluck and adventure The fellow must really have some good in him after all I should like to take notes of a few ol ot those stories they would supply nice material for basing a romance upon I hardly know whether Im exactly the roan man to make the hero of a novel Charles murmured with complacence And he certainly look it itI itI ItI I was thinking rather of Colonel Clay aa as the hero the poet responded coldly Ah the way with you men of letters Charles answered growing warm You always have a sneaking sympathy with the rascals That may amy be better re In an icy voice than sympathy with the worst form of stock exchange speculation The company smiled uneasily The railroad rail Mall king wriggled tried to change the subject hastily but Charles would not be e put down You must hear the end through he lie said not quite the worst The meanest thing about the man is that hes also al o a hypocrite He wrote me such sucha a letter at the end of his last trick here positively here hero in America And he proceeded to give his own version of the incident enlivened with sundry Imaginative bursts of pure fancy fane When Charles spoke of Mrs Quack the poet smiled The worst of married women he said Is that you cant marry them the worst of unmarried women Is tha they want to marry you But when It came to the letter the poets eye was upon my Charles I must fain admit garbled the document sadly Still even so some gleam of cf good feeling remained in its sentences But Charles ended all al by saying sa ing So to crown his misdemeanors N the rascal shows himself a whining cur and a disgusting Pharisee Dont you think the poet inter interposed interposed interposed posed in his cultivated drawl draw he ho may have really meant It Why should not some somo grain of compunction have stir sUr stirred stirred red his soul still Some remnant of ot conscience made him shrink from be betraying betraying betraying a man who confided in him himI I have an Idea myself that even the worst of rogues have always some gooi good In them I l notice they often succeed to the end In retaining the affection and fidelity of women Oh I said so 50 Charles sneered I told you ou you literary men have always alway an underhand regard for a scoundrel Perhaps so the poet answered for forwe forwe forwe we are all of or us human Let Lot him that is without sin among us cast the first stone And then he relapsed into moody silence We arose from the table Cigars wen went round We adjourned to the smoking room It was a Moorish marvel with oriental hangings There Senator and Charles exchanged rem or of bonanzas and ranches am and other exciting topics while the magazine editor cut in now and again a with a pertinent inquiry or ora ora ora a quaint and sarcastic parallel In Instance Instance Instance stance It was clear he had an eye to future copy Only Onh Algernon Colp yard sat brooding and silent slen with his chin on one hand and his brow intent musing and gazing at the embers in the fireplace The hand by the way was remarkable for a curious antique looking ring apparently of Egyptian or Etruscan workmanship with a project ing gem gm of several large facets Once only in tho the midst of a game of whist he lie broke out with a single comment Hawkins was made an earl said Charles speaking of some London ac so acquaintance nce What for asked the senator Successful adulteration said the poet tartly V Honors are easy the magazine edt edi editor tor t or nut Dut In InAnd InAnd InAnd And two by tricks tor to Sir Charles the he t poet added Toward Tow hI the close of the evening however h the poet still remaining moody noody m not to say positively grumpy Senator S proposed a friendly game jame g of Swedish poker It was the latest l fashionable variant in western society s on the old gambling round and andew few f ew of us knew I s v the omniscient poet p and the magazine editor It turned t r d dout out o ut afterward that proposed pr posed that particular game because he had heard h eard observe at the Lotus club lub c the same afternoon that it was a favorite f amusement of his Now how however howver ever ver e for a while he objected to play Ing l lt ng ug He was a poor man he said and nd the he t rest reat were all rich why should he lie throw throwaway t away the value of a dozen gold golden en e n sonnets just to add one more pinnacle cle ce d c to the gilded roofs of a millionaires p palace alace Besides he was half way wa t h with an ode he was to t o republican simplicity The pristine austerity a of a democratic senatorial cottage c had naturally inspired him with memories of the Camillus But dimly aware I he was being made fun of somehow in insisted insisted that the noet poet must take a hand with the financiers rs You can pass pas you know he said as often as you like Uke and you OU can stake low or go it blind according as youre oure Inclined to Its a democratic game every man decides for how high he will play except the banker and you take bank un unless unless unless less you want It ItOh itOh ItOh Oh It if you insist upon it drawled out with languid reluctance Ill play of course I wont spoil your evening But remember Im a poet poat VO t tI I have strange strang inspirations The cards were squeezers that is isto isto isto to say had the suit and the number of |