American Notes | Page 8

me, and in a measure numbed the suspicion that was
thoroughly aroused. Eventually the blue-eyed one discovered, nay,
insisted, that I had a taste for cards (this was clumsily worked in, but it
was my fault, for in that I met him half-way and allowed him no chance
of good acting). Hereupon I laid my head upon one side and simulated
unholy wisdom, quoting odds and ends of poker talk, all ludicrously
misapplied. My friend kept his countenance admirably, and well he
might, for five minutes later we arrived, always by the purest of chance,
at a place where we could play cards and also frivol with Louisiana
State Lottery tickets. Would I play?
"Nay," said I, "for to me cards have neither meaning nor continuity; but
let us assume that I am going to play. How would you and your friends
get to work? Would you play a straight game, or make me drunk,
or--well, the fact is, I'm a newspaper man, and I'd be much obliged if
you'd let me know something about bunco steering."
My blue-eyed friend erected himself into an obelisk of profanity. He
cursed me by his gods--the right and left bower; he even cursed the
very good cigars he had given me. But, the storm over, he quieted
down and explained. I apologized for causing him to waste an evening,
and we spent a very pleasant time together.
Inaccuracy, provincialism, and a too hasty rushing to conclusions, were
the rocks that he had split on, but he got his revenge when he
said:--"How would I play with you? From all the poppy-cock Anglice
bosh you talked about poker, I'd ha' played a straight game, and skinned
you. I wouldn't have taken the trouble to make you drunk. You never
knew anything of the game, but how I was mistaken in going to work
on you, makes me sick."
He glared at me as though I had done him an injury. To-day I know
how it is that year after year, week after week, the bunco steerer, who is
the confidence trick and the card-sharper man of other climes, secures
his prey. He clavers them over with flattery as the snake clavers the
rabbit. The incident depressed me because it showed I had left the
innocent East far behind and was come to a country where a man must

look out for himself. The very hotels bristled with notices about
keeping my door locked and depositing my valuables in a safe. The
white man in a lump is bad. Weeping softly for O-Toyo (little I knew
then that my heart was to be torn afresh from my bosom) I fell asleep in
the clanging hotel.
Next morning I had entered upon the deferred inheritance. There are no
princes in America--at least with crowns on their heads--but a
generous-minded member of some royal family received my letter of
introduction. Ere the day closed I was a member of the two clubs, and
booked for many engagements to dinner and party. Now, this prince,
upon whose financial operations be continual increase, had no reason,
nor had the others, his friends, to put himself out for the sake of one
Briton more or less, but he rested not till he had accomplished all in my
behalf that a mother could think of for her debutante daughter.
Do you know the Bohemian Club of San Francisco? They say its fame
extends over the world. It was created, somewhat on the lines of the
Savage, by men who wrote or drew things, and has blossomed into
most unrepublican luxury. The ruler of the place is an owl--an owl
standing upon a skull and cross-bones, showing forth grimly the
wisdom of the man of letters and the end of his hopes for immortality.
The owl stands on the staircase, a statue four feet high; is carved in the
wood-work, flutters on the frescoed ceiling, is stamped on the
note-paper, and hangs on the walls. He is an ancient and honorable bird.
Under his wing 'twas my privilege to meet with white men whose lives
were not chained down to routine of toil, who wrote magazine articles
instead of reading them hurriedly in the pauses of office-work, who
painted pictures instead of contenting themselves with cheap etchings
picked up at another man's sale of effects. Mine were all the rights of
social intercourse, craft by craft, that India, stony-hearted step-mother
of collectors, has swindled us out of. Treading soft carpets and
breathing the incense of superior cigars, I wandered from room to room
studying the paintings in which the members of the club had
caricatured themselves, their associates, and their aims. There was a
slick French audacity about the workmanship of these men of toil
unbending that went straight to the heart of