The Guarded Heights Part 50

"Rather not. The man that keeps himself makes the world better."

George had a disturbing fancy that Wandel accused him.

"You don't mean that at all," he said. "When will you learn to say what you mean?"

"Perhaps," Wandel replied, sipping, "when I decide not to enter politics."

"Your shot," Blodgett called, and Wandel strolled to the table.

Dalrymple didn't play, his accuracy having diminished to the point of laughter. He edged across to George.

"Old George Morton!" he drawled. "Young George Croesus! And all that."

The slurred last phrase was as abhorrent as "why don't you stick to your laundry?" It carried much the same implication. But Dalrymple was up to something, wanted something. He came to it after a time with the air of one conferring a regal favour.

"Haven't got a hundred in your pocket, Croesus? Driggs and bridge have squeezed me dry. Blodgett's got bones. Never saw such a man. Has everything. Driggs is running out. Recoup at bones. Everybody shoot. Got the change, save me running upstairs? Bad for my heart, and all that."

He grinned. George grinned back. It was a small favour, but it was a start, for the other acquired bad habits readily. Ammunition against Dalrymple! He had always needed it, might want it more than ever now. At last Dalrymple himself put it in his hand.

He pa.s.sed over the money, observing that the other moved so as to screen the transaction from those about the table.

"Little night-cap with me?" Dalrymple suggested as if by way of payment.

George laughed.

"Haven't you already protected the heads of the party?"

Dalrymple made a wry face.

"Do their heads a lot more good than mine."

The game ended.

Dalrymple turned away shouting.

"Bones! Bones!"

Blodgett produced a pair of dice with his air of giving each of his patrons his heart's desire. Wandel yawned. Dalrymple rattled the dice and slithered them across the billiard table.

"Coming in, George?" Blodgett roared.

"Thanks. I'm off to bed."

But he waited, curious as to the destination of the small loan he had just made.

Blodgett with tact threw for reasonable stakes. Roger's play was necessarily small, and he seemed ashamed of the fact. Lambert put plenty on the table, but urged no takers. Wandel varied his wagers. Dalrymple covered everything he could, and had luck.

George studied the intent figures, the eager eyes, as the dice flopped across the table; listened to the polished voices raised to these toys in childish supplications that sang with the petulant accents of negroes. Simultaneously he was irritated and entertained, experiencing a vague, uneasy fear that a requisite side of life, of which this folly might be taken as a symbol, had altogether escaped him. He laughed aloud when Wandel sang something about seven and eleven. His voice resembled a negro's as the peep of a sparrow approaches an eagle's scream.

"What you laughing at, great man? One must talk to them. Otherwise they don't behave, and you see I rolled an eleven. Positive proof."

He gathered in the money he had won.

"Shooting fifty this time."

"Why not shoot?" Dalrymple asked George. "'Fraid you couldn't talk to 'em?"

"Thing doesn't interest me."

"No sport, George Morton."

It was the way it was said that arrested George. Trust Dalrymple when he had had enough to drink to air his dislikes. The others glanced up.

"How much have you got there?" George asked quietly.

With a slightly startled air Dalrymple ran over his money.

"Pretty nearly three. Why?"

"Call it three," George said.

He gathered the dice from the table. The others drew back, leaving, as it were, the ring clear.

"I'll throw you just once," George said, "for three hundred. High man to throw. On?"

"Sure," Dalrymple said, thickly.

George counted out his money and placed it on the table. He threw a five. Dalrymple couldn't do better than a four. George rattled the dice, and, rather craving some of the other's Senegambian chatter, rolled them. They rested six and four. Dalrymple didn't try to hide his delight.

"Stung, old George Morton! Never come a ten again."

"There'll come another ten," George promised.

He continued to roll, a trifle self-conscious in his silence, while Dalrymple bent over the table, desirous of a seven, while the others watched, absorbed.

Sixes and eights fell, and other numbers, but for half-a-dozen throws no seven or ten.

"Come you seven!" Dalrymple sang.

"You've luck, George," Lambert commented. "I wouldn't lay against you now. I'll go you fifty, Driggs, on his ten."

"Done!"

The next throw the dice turned up six and four.

"The very greatest of men," Wandel said, ruefully.

While George put the money in his pocket Dalrymple straightened, frowning.