Peter Gee acquiesced, and the third game was on.
“Young whelp—he needs a lacing,” McMurtrey muttered to Grief. “Come
on, let us quit, you chaps. I want to keep an eye on him. If he goes too far
I’ll throw him out on the beach, company instructions or no.”
“Who is he?” Grief queried.
“A left-over from last steamer. Company’s orders to treat him nice. He’s
looking to invest in a plantation. Has a ten-thousand-pound letter of credit
with the company. He’s got ‘all-white Australia’ on the brain. Thinks
because his skin is white and because his father was once Attorney-
General of the Commonwealth that he can be a cur. That’s why he’s
picking on Peter, and you know Peter’s the last man in the world to make
trouble or incur trouble. Damn the company. I didn’t engage to wet-nurse
its infants with bank accounts. Come on, fill your glass, Grief. The man’s a
blighter, a blithering blighter.”
“Maybe he’s only young,” Grief suggested.
“He can’t contain his drink—that’s clear.” The manager glared his disgust
and wrath. “If he raises a hand to Peter, so help me, I’ll give him a licking
myself, the little overgrown cad!”
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The pearl-buyer pulled the pegs out of the cribbage board on which he was
scoring and sat back. He had won the third game. He glanced across to
Eddy Little, saying:
“I’m ready for the bridge, now.”
“I wouldn’t be a quitter,” Deacon snarled.
“Oh, really, I’m tired of the game,” Peter Gee assured him with his
habitual quietness.
“Come on and be game,” Deacon bullied. “One more. You can’t take my
money that way. I’m out fifteen pounds. Double or quits.”
McMurtrey was about to interpose, but Grief restrained him with his eyes.
“If it positively is the last, all right,” said Peter Gee, gathering up the
cards. “It’s my deal, I believe. As I understand it, this final is for fifteen
pounds. Either you owe me thirty or we quit even?”
“That’s it, chappie. Either we break even or I pay you thirty.”
“Getting blooded, eh?” Grief remarked, drawing up a chair.
The other men stood or sat around the table, and Deacon played again in
bad luck. That he was a good player was clear. The cards were merely
running against him. That he could not take his ill luck with equanimity
was equally clear. He was guilty of sharp, ugly curses, and he snapped and
growled at the imperturbable half-caste. In the end Peter
Gee counted out, while Deacon had not even made his fifty points. He
glowered speechlessly at his opponent.
“Looks like a lurch,” said Grief.
“Which is double,” said Peter Gee.
“There’s no need your telling me,” Deacon snarled. “I’ve studied
arithmetic. I owe you forty-five pounds. There, take it!”
The way in which he flung the nine five-pound notes on the table was an
insult in itself. Peter Gee was even quieter, and flew no signals of
resentment.
“You’ve got fool’s luck, but you can’t play cards, I can tell you that much,”
Deacon went on. “I could teach you cards.”
A SON OF THE SUN
98
The half-caste smiled and nodded acquiescence as he folded up the
money.
“There’s a little game called casino—I wonder if you ever heard of it?—a
child’s game.”
“I’ve seen it played,” the half-caste murmured gently.
“What’s that?” snapped Deacon. “Maybe, you think you can play it?”
“Oh, no, not for a moment. I’m afraid I haven’t head enough for it.”
“It’s a bully game, casino,” Grief broke in pleasantly. “I like it very much.”
Deacon ignored him.
“I’ll play you ten quid a game—thirty-one points out,” was the challenge
to Peter Gee. “And I’ll show you how little you know about cards. Come
on! Where’s a full deck?”
“No, thanks,” the half-caste answered. “They are waiting for me in order
to make up a bridge set.”
“Yes, come on,” Eddy Little begged eagerly. “Come on, Peter, let’s get
started.”
“Afraid of a little game like casino,” Deacon girded. “Maybe the stakes are
too high. I’ll play you for pennies—or farthings, if you say so.”
The man’s conduct was a hurt and an affront to all of them. McMurtrey
could stand it no longer.
“Now hold on, Deacon. He says he doesn’t want to play. Let him alone.”
Deacon turned raging upon his host; but before he could blurt out his
abuse, Grief had stepped into the breach.
“I’d like to play casino with you,” he said.
“What do you know about it?”
“Not much, but I’m willing to learn.”
“Well, I’m not teaching for pennies to-night.”
A SON OF THE SUN
99
“Oh, that’s all right,” Grief answered. “I’ll play for almost any sum—
within reason, of course.”
Deacon proceeded to dispose of this intruder with one stroke.
“I’ll play you a hundred pounds a game, if that will do you any good.”
Grief beamed his delight. “That will be all right, very right. Let us begin.
Do you count sweeps?”
Deacon was taken aback. He had not expected a Goboton trader to be
anything but crushed by such a proposition.
“Do you count sweeps?” Grief repeated.
Andrews had brought him a new deck, and he was throwing out the joker.
“Certainly not,” Deacon answered. “That’s a sissy game.”
“I’m glad,” Grief coincided. “I don’t like sissy games either.”
“You don’t, eh? Well, then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll play for five
hundred pounds a game.”
Again Deacon was taken aback.
“I’m agreeable,” Grief said, beginning to shuffle. “Cards and spades go out
first, of course, and then big and little casino, and the aces in the bridge
order of value. Is that right?”
“You’re a lot of jokers down here,” Deacon laughed, but his laughter was
strained. “How do I know you’ve got the money?”
“By the same token I know you’ve got it. Mac, how’s my credit with the
company?”
“For all you want,” the manager answered.
“You personally guarantee that?” Deacon demanded.
“I certainly do,” McMurtrey said. “Depend upon it, the company will
honour his paper up and past your letter of credit.”
“Low deals,” Grief said, placing the deck before Deacon on the table.
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100
The latter hesitated in the midst of the cut and looked around with
querulous misgiving at the faces of the others. The clerks and captains
nodded.
“You’re all strangers to me,” Deacon complained. “How am I to know?
Money on paper isn’t always the real thing.”
Then it was that Peter Gee, drawing a wallet from his pocket and
borrowing a fountain pen from McMurtrey, went into action.
“I haven’t gone to buying yet,” the half-caste explained, “so the account is
intact. I’ll just indorse it over to you, Grief. It’s for fifteen thousand. There,
look at it.”
Deacon intercepted the letter of credit as it was being passed across the
table. He read it slowly, then glanced up at McMurtrey.
“Is that right?”
“Yes. It’s just the same as your own, and just as good. The company’s
paper is always good.”
Deacon cut the cards, won the deal, and gave them a thorough shuffle. But
his luck was still against him, and he lost the game.
“Another game,” he said. “We didn’t say how many, and you can’t quit
with me a loser. I want action.”
Grief shuffled and passed the cards for the cut.
“Let’s play for a thousand,” Deacon said, when he had lost the second
game. And when the thousand had gone the way of the two five hundred
bets he proposed to play for two thousand.
“That’s progression,” McMurtrey warned, and was rewarded by a glare
from Deacon. But the manager was insistent. “You don’t have to play
progression, Grief, unless you’re foolish.”
“Who’s playing this game?” Deacon flamed at his host; and then, to Grief:
“I’ve lost two thousand to you. Will you play for two thousand?”
Grief nodded, the fourth game began, and Deacon won. The manifest
unfairness of such betting was known to all of them. Though he had lost
three games out of four, Deacon had lost no money. By the child’s device
of doubling his wager with each loss, he was bound, with the first game he
won, no matter how long delayed, to be even again.
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He now evinced an unspoken desire to stop, but Grief passed the deck to
be cut.
“What?” Deacon cried. “You want more?”
“Haven’t got anything yet,” Grief murmured whimsically, as he began the
deal. “For the usual five hundred, I suppose?”
The shame of what he had done must have tingled in Deacon, for he
answered, “No, we’ll play for a thousand. And say! Thirty-one points is
too long. Why not twenty-one points out—if it isn’t too rapid for you?”
“That will make it a nice, quick, little game,” Grief agreed.
The former method of play was repeated. Deacon lost two games, doubled