The Streets of Ascalon Part 36

"Which end?" inquired O'Hara.

"An interior." And he touched the Queen of Hearts, carelessly.

"Crazy playing and lunatic's luck," commented Lacy. "Dankmere, and you, too, Sir Charles, you'd better cut and run for home as fast as your little legs can toddle. Quarren is on the loose."

Sir Charles laughed, glanced at Quarren, then turned to Dankmere.

"It's none of my business," he said, "but if you really are in the devilish financial straits you pretend to be, why don't you square up things and go into trade?"

"Square things?" repeated the little Earl mournfully; "will somebody tell me how? Haven't I been trying out everything? Didn't I back a musical comedy of sorts? Didn't I even do a turn in it myself?"

"That's what probably smashed it," observed O'Hara.

"He did it very well," laughed Sir Charles.

"Dankmere ought to have filled his show full of flossy flappers,"

insisted Lacy. "Who wants to see an Earl dance and sing? Next time I'll manage the company for you, Dankmere----"

"There'll be no next time," said Dankmere, scanning his cards. "I'm done for," he added, dramatically, letting his own ante go.

"You've lost your nerve," said Quarren, smiling.

"And everything else, my boy!"

"What's the matter with the heiresses, anyway?" inquired O'Hara sympathetically.

"The matter is that I don't want the sort that want me. Somebody's ruined the business in the States. I suppose I might possibly induce a Broadway show-girl----"

The little Earl got up and began to wander around, hands in his pockets, repeating:

"I'd make a pretty good actor, in spite of what O'Hara said. It's the only thing I like anyway. I can improvise songs, too. Listen to this impromptu, you fellows":

And he bent over the piano, still standing, and beat out a jingling accompaniment:

"I sigh for the maiden I never have seen, I'll make her my countess whatever she's been-- Typewriter, manicure, heiress or queen, Aged fifty or thirty or lovely eighteen, Redundant and squatty, or scraggy and lean, Generous spendthrift or miserly mean-- I sigh for the maiden I never have seen Provided she's padded with wads of Long Green!"

Still singing the air he picked up a silk hat and walking-stick and began to dance, rather lightly and gracefully, his sunken, heavy-lidded eyes fixed nonchalantly on s.p.a.ce--his nimble little feet making no sound on the floor as he swung, swayed, and capered under the electric light timing his agile steps to his own singing.

Loud applause greeted him; much hand-clapping and cries of "Good old Dankmere! Three cheers for the British peerage!"

Sir Charles looked slightly bored, sitting back in his chair and waiting for the game to recommence. Which it did with the return of the Earl who had now relieved both his intellect and his legs of an acc.u.mulated and Terpisch.o.r.ean incubus.

"If I was a bigger a.s.s than I am," said the Earl, "I'd go into vaudeville and let my creditors howl."

"Did they really send you over here?" asked O'Hara, knowing that his lordship made no bones about it.

"They certainly did. And a fine mess I've made of it, haven't I? No decent girl wants me--though why, I don't know, because I'm decent enough as men go. But your newspapers make fun of me and my t.i.tle--and I might as well cut away to Dankmere Tarns and let 'em pick my carca.s.s clean."

"What's Dankmere Tarns?" asked O'Hara.

"Mine, except the mortgages on it."

"Entailed?"

"Naturally."

"Kept up?"

"No, shut up."

"What sort of a gallery is that of yours at Dankmere Tarns?" inquired Sir Charles, turning around.

"How the devil do I know," replied his lordship fretfully. "I don't know anything about pictures."

"Are there not some very valuable ones there?"

"There are a lot of very dirty ones."

"Don't you know their value?"

"No, I don't. But I fancy the good ones were sold off long ago--twenty years ago I believe. There was a sale--a lot of rubbish of sorts. I took it for granted that Lister's people cleaned out everything worth taking."

"When you go back," said Sir Charles, "inspect that rubbish again.

Perhaps Lister's people overlooked enough to get you out of your financial difficulties. Pictures that sold for 100 twenty years ago might bring 1,000 to-day. It's merely a suggestion, Dankmere--if you'll pardon it."

"And a good one," added O'Hara. "I know a lot of interestin' people and they tell me that you can sell any rotten old picture over here for any amount of money. Sting 'em, Dankmere. Get to 'em!"

"You might send for some of your pictures," said Lacy, "and have a shot at the auction-mad amateur. He's too easy."

"And pay duty and storage and gallery hire and auction fees!--no, thanks," replied the little Earl, cautiously. "I've burnt my bally fingers too often in schemes."

"I've a back room behind my office," said Quarren. "You can store them there if you like, without charge."

"Besides, if they're genuine, there will be no duty to pay," explained Sir Charles.

Dankmere sucked on his cigar but made no comment; and the game went on, disastrously for him.

Quarren said casually to Sir Charles:

"I suppose you will be off to Newport, soon."

"To-morrow. When do you leave town?"

"I expect to remain in town nearly all summer."

"Isn't that rather hard?"

"No; it doesn't matter much," said the boy indifferently.