Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

RAW MATERIAL. chance in her affections and regard after all? His heart gave a joyful leap. Tumtum emerged upon the promenade deck, walked forward. Lillian, privileged always, was standing on the bridge. Tumtum scraped his heavy» shoes noisily along the deck. Lillian turned and looked down at him. - Tumtum smiled, Lillian turned her head, went on talking with the officer on duty in a casual, unconcerned manner. Tumtum turned, retraced his step to the door of the companionway. “ There hain’t a doubt,” said he to himself as he went down the stair, ‘“‘ they hain’t a doubt but what I’m due to win. Unlucky at love, lucky at cards. I’m just about due.” Day after day the game went on. Some _evenings Katimura had the bank, one even- ing only it had belonged to Tumtum. The most consistent winner was Chu Fan, the China boss. The . Walrus, seasick to a degree that would have a little dissipated gloom in the breast of Tumtum Teller, had he known, kept strictly to her stateroom on the hurricane deck. As for Lillian, she ranged the ship, visited with the engineers on watch, which is against the rules, prowled about the forecastle, also against the rules, watched a Korean boy doing fancy work, became interested in a Jap can- lacquerer who was painting an exquisite little study of the omnipresent Fujiyama, with a cherry-tree in the foreground, a flight of storks, and a dainty Geisha girl wearing a flowered obi. | On one day approaching the end of the voyage, Lillian was gone an unconscionable time. Her. aunt, the wretched mal de mer still upon her, demanded peevishly to know where the girl had been so long. Lillian, staring abstractedly through the port light, replied that she had just been walking around. Presently, Mrs. Barto Hendricks was able to leave the stateroom. Then she, too, be- gan to prowl about a bit. Mrs. Hendricks extended her walks to the promenade deck, began going below for her meals. _ * Lillian,” said her aunt severely upon an occasion when Mrs. Hendricks had just * quietly. - Let’s h’ist her. the table. 411 come from below, “ Lillian, poker gambling is the lowest thing. yy Lillian nodded her head absently, agreed that poker gambling was low indeed. ‘ Well,” said Mrs. Hendricks trenchant- ly, “that hired man of yours, Teller, is playing poker gambling this very minute in the salon with a-lot of dirty Japs and Chinamen. He’s been playing every min- ute since we left: The cabin-boy told me so. Poker gam ling with Chinamen—what could be lower!” Lillian flushed. Resentment, a flash of loyalty showed in her brown eyes. ‘Dad used to play poker,” she answered “That is, once in a while he did.” The Walrus champed her tusks, snorted, retired to her stateroom. She had always heard that the West was wild and tough. Now she knew that the half had never been told. The liner had made through Unimak Pass, was heading the seas off Queen Char- lotte. Still the game went on: Off Thomp- son Point, into the Straits of Fuca, up the Sound toward Seattle, and still the shifty- eyed Katimura, the serene, impassive Chu . Fan, the alternately sweating and collected Tumtum Teller shuffled, dealt, drew and dealt again. Tumtum glanced through a port light. “Point No Point,” he said, stabbing his thumb toward a visible jut of land. “ We hain’t got but about half an hour to play. Just Jack-pots, five-dollar . ante, and five-dollar sweetener.”’ In three swift hands, Chu. Fan had re- duced Tumtum’s pile to three hundred dol- lars, had cleaned the smart Jap, Katimura, of every bill and gold piece that lay before him. Tumtum dealt. Chu Fan opened. Kati- mura nodded his head to indicate that he ‘was in, though he had not antied. Kati- mura’s word was good in a poker game even if not especially good anywhere else . Chu Fan raised. Tumtum raised him back. Tumtum shoved to the center of the table every circulating dollar that he possessed on earth. Katimura’s ratlike eyes made a swift appraisement of the amount of money on He drew the money toward him, COLMUC OOOLK (CO