1937-06-18 — Page 25

D

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JUNE 18, 1937

JACKPOT!

NEAL Jupiter

EAL FERRIS locked the door Hats, Inc., Branch 38; shook it; turned, flip- ping up his coat collar and star- ed into the six o'clock carnival of East Willow Street. An El train screamed down the Market Road platform, dripping sparks from wet rails; a couple jumped wildly apart to avoid them and the man looked back and up in- dignantly, his lips moving. A large, damp snowflake lighted on Neal's sleek hair-he went. al- ways hatless because the ghosts of fedoras and derbies swam through his sleep--and absently he brushed it off, still hesitating.

Then the frailty which always triumphed over Neal Ferris at six o'clock triumphed again. He stepped out în the direction he had no business -East toward Market Road and the Bavarian Village instead of west toward University Square and his fur- nished room. He walked fast and nervously; he walked guiltily. He was about to commit the one intemperate act of his hat-clerk's day; the one idiotic thing which he would pay in innumer- able small, humiliating ways.

for.

He was about to demonstrate what can happen а generation later when a Mississippi river- boat gambler marries a school- marm on vacation from Needham, Mass. It happened every after- noon.

He didn't even make ex- cuses to himself any more, didn't remind himself what a cautious, exemplary young man--every- thing his grandmother could have hoped--he was for twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. The thing had him now. He just yielded.

He turned the corner into Mar- ket Road and approached the Bavarian Village, a hard-yellow- lighted, third-rate beer bar. Once the hubbub of a long line of work- men at the rail had quickened the place into a heartiness almost Repeal gay. That was before had thinned them out: there were so many places now, shiny new stubes with modernistic bars and chronium rails. The nostalgic disrepute of the Bavarian Village, serving the best racketeer brew in town for thirteen years, didn't tug the customers in any more. Once the scrawl on the slate out- side had promised fish cakes and roast beef sandwiches free; now. it offered only hot-dogs. Once the beer kegs had been unloaded romantically at night. Now-

He walked casually and, be hoped, convincingly up to the bar first. He always did that. It re- moved some of the appearance.of being an incurable sucker.

Pete, the fish-eyed bartender and half owner with the furrow- ed lip, who was kidding a drunk at the other end of the bar, mov- ed forward behind the counter. ·

"One light?" He was already drawing it. He looked at Neal from the bottoms of his eyes. He knew that Neal cared nothing for the beer, that he would, take only a couple of sips. He thought Neal was a sap, a rather puzzling sap, but a sap all the same, and he showed it. He set out the beer.

"Want some slugs?" he inquir- ed, grinning coldly.

Neal nodded, calculating rapid-

ly as he fingered the dollar bill and some silver in his pocket. A dollar and forty-five cents. He could buy twenty nickel slugs now, or he could buy them five at a time. He couldn't touch the forty-five cents, which represent- ed two breakfasts before payday. He compromised.

"I'll take ten slugs," he said, in a low voice.

Pete scooped eight shiny brass counters out of the cash drawer and pushed them toward Neal, with his changé.

"I took out for the beer," he said. He strolled back toward the drunk, who was singing to the whine of a small radio. The drunk was the only other cus- tomer.

Now Neal turned toward the machines. There were three, plump, gaudily scrolled metal boxes like cash-registers with levers at the sides. He felt his cheeks pinken with anticipation. His palms itched for the feel of the levers, his eyes were hungry for the spin of brightly coloured

Short Story

oranges, cherries, plums, bells and bars. In his ears he could already hear the clatter of won slugs in the cup-two, four, eight, twelve, sixteen or, miraculously, the jackpot, overa hundred, gleaming temptingly now behind the glass window of the nook which held them.'

"Hello, Pneumonia.”

Neal turned very red. He hadn't noticed Ida wiping off the corner table. He particularly hated for Ida to think him a suck- er; she was a miracle, anyhow, to be waiting on the booth tables of the Bavarian Village cool and blonde, pert and blue-eyed, a year out of high school and the daugh- ter of Nobby Drewer, Pete's part- ner. He had been appalled to see a child like that in here the first time; but one night he had heard her unleash a tongue as knowing and effective as a raw- hide whip on a customer who got.. fresh and he had decided that she

CUPID PULLS THE LEVER

was as dangerous as she was doomed. Neal was nothing if not circumspect and he put her out of his mind. She had called him Pneumonia since his third visit, when he ran in bareheaded out of the rain.

"I just dropped in," he said foolishly.

"Yeah, so I see. With a hand- ful of nickels. You'll never get rich that way, young fellow." She smiled--a cool, pert, blonde smile. When she smiled like that it always made Neal shiver to contemplate her manifest destiny. Under different auspices she might have been-

He laughed nervously and walked over to the nearest nickel machine. He inserted a slu, and pulled the lever down eager- ly. There was a whir. The cherries, lemons, bells, bars, plums and oranges blurred as they spun. A lemon and two bells came up in line. Nothing. The first lemon never païd when it appeared. He sighed and put in another slug, pulled the lever.

By James Aswell

Now he was all concentration on the changing trio of symbols be- hind the little glass face. Ani- mation gripped him as it never 'did through the long days of of- fering customers Jupiter hats to try on; colour came into his cheeks, his breath and the New England slate of his usual eyes began to smoulder. Slow whorls moved in them-like the whorls in river water. He deposited the nickels faster, more raptly. He had forgotten everything except the enormous fascination of the game. Two cherries and a bell. Four slugs clattered into the cup. He lost twice and then his heart pounded as the third deep blue plum' fell into line. That would be twelve. He was ahead! Ab- stractedly it occurred to him that he, could cash in his slugs now and leave with thirty or forty cents profit. He pulled the lever again and again. Twenty cents ahead. If he could hit eight. he'd quit. Suddenly he was put-

Ben-hur.

ting his last slug in the slot. cherry appeared, bounced off to a lemon.

He returned to the bar, straigh- tening his tie and glancing co- vertly over to see whether Ida had noticed his shameful excite- ment. She was sitting at the corner table reading a paper. She looked over it and smiled at him. "What, no jackpots, Pneu- `monia?"

"Oh, I don't play to win," he lied carelessly. "I just put in a nickel for the pleasure of pulling the lever. A nickel a pull. It's fun.".

Pete was shaking hands with the drunk at the other end of the bar. He disengaged his big paw and moved toward Neal again, grinning. He nodded his head at Ida and winked. "Nice, eh? Ida and me's gonna go out and do the town tomorrer night.”

"Sez you!" Ida called. Pete cackled. "That's a date, bebby. Don't you worry, that's a date."

Neal discover that he was trembling with hatred. His fin- gers closed about his stein and he had a wild desire to fling it into the face with the furrowed lip. Then he knew he could re- gain control if he didn't look at Ida. His eyes went gradually slatey, bland again. He might be a fool, but not a big enough fool to start a barroom brawl Ida would only laugh at him. But he wondered what Nobby Drewer would do if he knew his partner. was trying to date up his daugh- ter-big, blustery, kind-hearted Nobby who was, he knew, in Poly- clinic Hospital with a cut-up heart. Maybe Pete was only jok ing. He had admitted he had a wife and two kids in Minneapolis. He must be only joking. Cer- tainly, with his partner's daugh- ter-well, anyhow, it wouldn't matter about her in a couple of years. It was only hard to watch at the start. She was headed · only one way and it was none of his business. He sipped his beer. "Some more slugs?" Pete ask- ed.

Neal pushed half 2 dollar across the counter. "Ten more." Pete gave him the slugs and started back toward his drunk-- who suddenly turned and shook a finger at Ida.

(Continued on Page 7)

no, we're not talking about the movie something much more exciting a. Streamline Automatic Curler, for fast, easy and perfect curls. And what curls! You'll see this new curler at MAIZEE'S, our American shop, always first to bring you the big ideas. They have lovely little cases too containing sun-glasses with rims of different colours and mirror and comb. The ideal accessory in Hong Kong's summer! And more good news -25% discount on the white felt hats and the belts. And you know all about their stockings

Belle-Sharmeer ?

Sheer, lovely hose in all the newest, shades.

MAIZEE'S

Alexandra Bldg.