James Pethel | Page 5

of time," he admitted.
I glanced down at the splendid mess of counters and gold and notes that were now becoming, under the swift fingers of the little man at the bureau, an orderly array. I did not say aloud that it pleased me to be, and to be seen, talking on terms of equality to a man who had won so much. I did not say how wonderful it seemed to me that he, whom I had watched just now with awe and with aversion, had all the while been a great admirer of my work. I did but say, again indulgently, that I supposed baccarat to be as good a way of wasting time as another.
"Ah, but you despise us all the same." He added that he always envied men who had resources within themselves. I laughed lightly, to imply that it WAS very pleasant to have such resources, but that I didn't want to boast. And, indeed, I had never felt humbler, flimsier, than when the little man at the bureau, naming a fabulous sum, asked its owner whether he would take the main part in notes of mille francs, cinq-mille, dix-mille--quoi? Had it been mine, I should have asked to have it all in five-franc pieces. Pethel took it in the most compendious form, and crumpled it into his pocket. I asked if he were going to play any more to-night.
"Oh, later on," he said. "I want to get a little sea air into my lungs now." He asked, with a sort of breezy diffidence, if I would go with him. I was glad to do so. It flashed across my mind that yonder on the terrace he might suddenly blurt out: "I say, look here, don't think me awfully impertinent, but this money's no earthly use to me. I do wish you'd accept it as a very small return for all the pleasure your work has given me, and-- There, PLEASE! Not another word!"--all with such candor, delicacy, and genuine zeal that I should be unable to refuse. But I must not raise false hopes in my reader. Nothing of the sort happened. Nothing of that sort ever does happen.
We were not long on the terrace. It was not a night on which you could stroll and talk; there was a wind against which you had to stagger, holding your hat on tightly, and shouting such remarks as might occur to you. Against that wind acquaintance could make no headway. Yet I see now that despite that wind, or, rather, because of it, I ought already to have known Pethel a little better than I did when we presently sat down together inside the cafe of the casino. There had been a point in our walk, or our stagger, when we paused to lean over the parapet, looking down at the black and driven sea. And Pethel had shouted that it would be great fun to be out in a sailing-boat to-night, and that at one time he had been very fond of sailing.
As we took our seats in the cafe, he looked about him with boyish interest and pleasure; then squaring his arms on the little table, he asked me what I would drink. I protested that I was the host, a position which he, with the quick courtesy of the very rich, yielded to me at once. I feared he would ask for champagne, and was gladdened by his demand for water.
"Apollinaris, St. Galmier, or what?" I asked. He preferred plain water. I ventured to warn him that such water was never "safe" in these places. He said he had often heard that, but would risk it. I remonstrated, but he was firm. "Alors," I told the waiter, "pour Monsieur un verre de l'eau fraiche, et pour moi un demi blonde."
Pethel asked me to tell him who every one was. I told him no one was any one in particular, and suggested that we should talk about ourselves.
"You mean," he laughed, "that you want to know who the devil I am?"
I assured him that I had often heard of him. At this he was unaffectedly pleased.
"But," I added, "it's always more interesting to hear a man talked about by himself." And indeed, since he had NOT handed his winnings over to me, I did hope he would at any rate give me some glimpses into that "great character" of his. Full though his life had been, he seemed but like a rather clever schoolboy out on a holiday. I wanted to know more.
"That beer looks good," he admitted when the waiter came back. I asked him to change his mind, but he shook his head, raised to his lips the tumbler of water that had been placed before him, and meditatively drank a deep