8
JACK
JACKPOT! POP:
(Continued from Page 7)
and all! He'd quit by all that was holy after the first hit, even if it was only two. His hand shook as he dropped the pig slug down the slot.
*
"You poor, nice sap," Ida said. “Buck up, Pneumonia, don't let 'em get you even if you did pour your money down the chute." She poked his shoulder.
He jerked erect in his seat. Black despair had engulfed him so, he hadn't realised that his head was down on his arms.
"Drink your 'beer," she said. She had taken off her apron now, wore a cloth coat with a trim mousy fur. "To-morrow's an- other day and you can throw away some more nickels then."
Her smile played a tingling glissando down his spine.
"Oh, I'm not worried about that small change. Those machines? I know, don't you think I know you can't beat them? I play them just for fun." He hesitat- ed. "Say—I'm sorry if I embar- rassed you last night. I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Tell me ahead next time.”
She chuckled briefly, wisely, deep in her throat as her smile faded. She took a quick breath and slipped into the bench op- posite his own in the booth. "Don't mind that," she said. "Don't mind me. But you're not, fooling anybody, Pneumonia. I know you're tossing money away in those things that ought to go for coffee and cakes. I know they've got you. Listen: I've got a hunch about fellows like you. You're a petty gambler, Pneu- monia. I've thought it out. You're a petty gambler, mister, and you're going to end up on the stem if you don't cut it out. The big gamblers are all right. They know their onions. people get to be petty gamblers because they've never gambled for anything that counts." She reached over and tapped his sleeve for emphasis, narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "Wait'll you gamble for something that counts and you won't have any time for those clip boxes.".
But
She started to edge out from the table. "That's all I got to
Just say, Pneumonia.
gamble once for something big-really [big, I mean-and you'll laugh off
those nickel eaters."
Neal grinned. Her intensity, her childish passion, warned him to a sort of agonised laughter in his heart. Their eyes met and elung for a split second like hands; they were, in that moment, children whistling in their separ- ate darks.
"Something big?" His tone was abstracted.
"Yeah," said Ida. "Something big." She made up her mind then and sank back down. "TIE": tell you what I mean. You don't see me playing slot machines, do you? Well, this is why. I got other things to gamble about. Pop doesn't own any of this joint. He hasn't for eight months. He just works for Pete, and that's what I do. That gorilla! Do I hate his insides!"
•
"But you're going out with him to-night." Neal remembered now all over again when he reminded her. He remembered his homici- dal antagonism for Pete.
"Sure I'm going out with him. I'm going out with him because
2
HOW CAN HE AFFORD · TO
KEEP A
BUTLER, FOOTMAN AND A CHAUFFEUR,
POP?
THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JUNE 18, 1937
By Millar Watt
PLAYS CONTRACT
WITH THEM
(1934. by Bell Byndicate)
he pays me fifty dollars a week. to work here, which is about thirty-five more than he needs to pay. He knows it and I know. it. Does it begin to click, Pneumon- ia? Are you catching on?" Her eyes crackled with bright bitter- ness. "One more payment to the hospital and Pop's mine.
away.
EVERY SATURDAY
NIGHT-
AND WINS BACK
THEIR
WAGES!
Her hair was white pine excelsior in the brittle light. He reached out and tugged absently at her sleeve. "Sit down again,” he said.
•
Slow whorls She sat down. moved in the New England slate like the of Neal's usual eyes, whorls in river water. He's
Finally he said: better now, ready to come out in a couple of days. Meanwhile,
"Listen, Ida. I've got a farm, fifty acres of Louisiana swamp I'm going to string Mister Pete
Things will along; I'm going to -keep
land. It's fertile. him
There's nothing for grow on it. guessing. Get the idea now about
There's last night?
me now in this town. Did you think I was
to no future, I am beginning trying to date you up? That lo-
think, in Jupiter hats. I've got peared pug is no fool. Maybe I
that farm. I've got a gold watch won't be able to string him along.
with a diamond set in the back of And so what? And so Pop comes
it that came from my granddad, out of the hospital anyway.”
the same's the land did.” She paused for breath. "I see," Neal said. "Another thing." She held his eyes sternly and he could see the colour under her
"I
rouge.
don't want you hanging around here any more, Pneumonia. There are other slot machines. Play 'em! Maybe you'll get rich, but as for me, I'm tired of watching the slaughter of the innocents.'
Neal wasn't angry, but he some- how thought that he ought to be. "You can't keep me out of here,” he said.
"Oh, no? And if I tell Pete you're making a play for me? You'd be out so fast the doors wouldn't have a chance to swing but once."
"You don't like me much, do you?"
"Don't like you? Why, you dope, I was trying-" She stopped herself and suddenly wriggled out from the table, stood up. "That's all. Goodbye, Pneu monia. A relief man is on and Pete's in the barber shop next door getting beautiful. I don't want him to come back and find us still chewing the rag. Pay up and scram, fellow, if you saved a dime out. It was nice knowing you."
Neal's jaw gradually stiffened. Watching him, Ida didn't
go
He hesitated, as Faro Ferris might have hesitated, before a ten thousand dollar flip of paste- board, but not for long.
"That gold watch will bring a hundred dollars in a pawnshop I know. You go get your pop"- his tone was matter-of-fact--"and the three of us will go down and live on my estate. Of course"-- he hurried through this "you and I'll be married first. We'll pick up a Ford second-hand for twenty-five bucks and 'get down there some way. We'll make out."
"Well I'll be damned,” said Ida. "Pop already has a Ford.”
"Of course, on such short ac- quaintance, I don't love you, but I might," he added gravely.
"And I don't love you-but. I might." She spoke, frowning, in a far-away voice, as if she were repeating words in a ritual.
She blinked, then, seemed to come to. She said briskly, "Cut it out, Pneumonia. What sort of stuff is that? I couldn't marry you. I don't know enough about you. I couldn't take a gamble like that."
4
eyelash blinked Then Ida said:
between
them.
"We've got to hurry. I'll dust upstairs and pack my bag. I'll admit I'm just taking advantage of a sucker.”.
"No," said Neal slowly, “you're not."
He got up and strolled, head up, whistling a little tune, toward the front of the room. The enor- mity of his gamble to-night filled him with a curious swaggering pride. (Faro had felt like that on big occasions long ago.) Ida had been right, slot machine gam- bling faded to absurd inconse- quence beside this other hazard. He had heard you had one chance in five hundred of hitting the Jackpot. What chance did he have for happiness? Well, any- how, he had purged himself of slot machines and slot machine fever forever.
.
Almost clinically he paused and examined the quarterma- chine.
He was very detached about it. He had two quarters in his pocket. It didn't matter now. Just to pass the time and for no other reason, he'd drop a quarter in. He did and pulled the lever down graduallly until the works clicked and the wheels began to spin. He looked on absently.
In the first space a bar hesitat- ed, settled. A second bar zipped into place. A wild hope churned him. The third bar came up and stuck.
.
"Jackpot!" he cried. wildly, as a torrent of gleaming metal coun- ters, over a hundred of them, poured down into the cup, spilled over clinking onto the floor- gleaming mystic and restless and. almost as bright as Ida's hair.
1st.
Kangaroo: Annabelle, where's the baby?
2nd Kangaroo My goodness,
i've had my pocket picked!
Without warning they both laughed. They sobered quickly. and their eyes held in a sort of frantic mutual inquiry. Maybe a
Not minute. Maybe five.
"On what did Joe bid his five no trump?
“One ace, two kings and three. whiskies
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