Easy money; being the experiences of a reformed gambler;

Chapter I. Introductory

I shall endeavor in these writings concerning gambling and gamblers to follow the injunction which the Spartan father gave to his son — to "shoot straight and speak the truth."

I am now forty years of age. During , twenty-one of those years I have been connected with gamblers ; at first as their victim, and afterwards as their confederate. Bret Harte doped our literature with Mother Shipton and John Oakhurst, but his deified sport is as much the offspring of pure fiction as his sanctified strumpet. I assert, without fear of successful contradiction from those who know, that not one professional gambler in a thousand is at all times absolutely square. He will occasionally, if not always, throw loaded dice, deal from the bottom of the pack, introduce marked cards, extract aces from his sleeve, pull cards from a faro box with a "snake" in it, whirl the ball around an advantage wheel, and control the outcome of a race by doping horses and bribing jockeys.

I have been, as a professional gambler, not as bad as the worst of them, but probably as good as the best of them. Like the farmer who does not always put the smallest strawberries at the bottom of the box, and the biggest adjacent rock in the middle of the hay bale ; or, like the Wall Street broker who does not always bucket the orders of his customers, I have often been square with those who dealt fairly with me. At other times I have been a follower of the golden rule of David Harum to "do unto others what they would do unto me if they had a chance, and to do it first."

I have left the race track and the card room forever. I have revolted from the associations and practices of twenty-one years. I am writing these sketches partly from the selfish motive of so shutting the doors of gambling rooms and pool-rooms in my own face as to make my return to them impossible, and partly from the unselfish motive of warning others away from the pitfalls into which I was beguiled in youth, and into which I afterwards aided to beguile others. Whether my reformation from gambling to decency is due to the teachings of Christianity, or to the influence of Halley's Comet, is a matter of no consequence to the reader. Whatever the cause, or whatever the consequences, I am going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Chapter II. My First Bet

Until I reached the age of eighteen years, I was an honest, hard-working lad, living with my parents in St. Louis, and acting as assistant clerk on a Mississippi River steamer, of which my father was captain and part owner. It was in 1888, and gambling on river boats was no longer practiced, or even tolerated, as in the years before the war. The prehistoric southern "Majah," with broad- brimmed sombrero, white necktie, gold-headed cane and courtly demeanor, the "Majah" who put up a fiftydollar bale of cotton for his "ante," and raised his opponent a one-thousand-dollar "nigger" after the draw, had vanished from the Mississippi River steamers, and was now in evidence only in the pool-rooms and at the race tracks, where jockeyed, weighted, trimmed and doped horses had taken the place of marked cards. The excursion steamer was to take the place of the old-time gambling on the Mississippi, in which business I became engaged in later years, as related within these pages.

One bright moonlight evening in 1888, as I was

enjoying my eighteenth year of life by pacing up

and down the hurricane deck of my father's steamer,

the Annie P. Silver, as she lay at the foot of Olive

Street, St. Louis, two gentlemen — that is, they were gentlemen in dress and manners — came on board and accosted me. "Mr. Brolaski, I presume," said the elder of the two. I admitted that such was my name.

"My name is Morris. You have forgotten me," said he, "but I had the pleasure of an iritroduction to you last week during the excursion trip of this boat up the river, and your name has since been mentioned to me by mutual friends as that of a young man in whose discretion and secrecy I could confide."

I admitted that I was discreet, and not given to babbling. '

"Mr. Brolaski," said he, "I am betting commissioner for one of the largest stables at the race track, and I am necessarily in a position to make some money out of advance information, but I cannot act openly or I would lose my position. This man that I have brought with me is the trainer of one of the horses to be in a race tomorrow, and it has been 'fixed' for that horse. to win. He cannot bet openly on that horse, neither can I. We want somebody to place bets- and we desire, if possible, to make an arrangement with you to do so for us ' You can profit by the knowledge we give: you to- make bets with an absolute certainty of rwinning. In return for this information we wilL require; you to share your w-innings with us. It is a suEe.;thing. The .odds will be ten to one against the horse that is/fixed' to win, and yo« can take dowii, Qae thousand dollars — which will be five hundred for you — for every one hundred dollars you put up. I suppose you have a hundred dollars that you can command?"

I had two hundred and fifteen dollars, that it had taken me all summer to earn by working about eighteen hours a day. The jew-fish wthin me opened wide its mouth to swallow the offered bait, and I advised Mr. Morris of the condition of my finances.

"Well," said Mr. Morris, "bring this money with you to the race track tomorrow. Don't say a word to any living soul. This horse trainer has been robbed of his earnings for the season by a stable hand who ran away with the money, and I am doing this to help the man and his little family. I want but little for myself. You will have half of what you win, the other half goes to us. If this is satisfactory, Mr. Brolaski, I will see you at the race track tomorrow. Don't address me there until I first speak to you, for we will have to be cautious."

The gentlemen departed, leaving me to a sleepless night of anticipation. Well has Doctor Johnson said that "hope is sweeter than possession." How much better is the money that we are going to get than the money we do get. Oh, the things we can do with it, the luxuries we will buy with it, the friends we will help with it, the European tours we will take with it!

"What," I said to myself, "is the use of working, when there are fabulous sums of easy money waiting to be picked up at the race track?" I had slaved all summer to make and save a poor two hundred and fifteen dollars, and now I would double or quadruple it in one afternoon. I would in a short time become a king of finance. I would strut through the corridors of the Southern Hotel with a diamond pin like the head light of a locomotive. I would make all my acquaintances kow-tow to the Young Napoleon of Finance. It would be —

"I, I, I itself, I—

The inside, the outside, the what and the why;

The when and the where, the low and the high —

All I,'l, I itself, I."

But how, thought I, about the right and wrong of it? Would it be honest to obtain money in this way? But I quieted my conscience with the stock reflection that the devil puts in the brain of thieves that "somebody would get it in this way, and I might as well be that somebody."

The morning dawned. I was up at five o'clock and all in a flutter. I strutted around my room like a peacock on an amatory excursion. I could not attend to my business at all during the morning. My mind was constantly on the race track. I did not partake of any breakfast except a cup of coffee, and my noon luncheon consisted of a chocolate eclair and another cup of coffee. My watch could not run fast enough for me. I said with the poet —

"Oh how the leaden-footed, limpid minutes

I thought that two o'clock would never come. At about half past twelve o'clock I went to the Fair Grounds race track to see a horse race for the first time. I purchased my ticket and bought a program. The boys on the outside selling tips and stable information saw that I was a new one and a green one. They clustered around and tried to sell me their tips and stable information. I waved them aside with a haughty air, trying to make them think I was an old hand at the game and had been there before; but they knew better. I strolled to the fruit stand, and it was just ten minutes past one. Fifty minutes ahead of time ! That fifty minutes seemed to me to be fifty hours !

At exactly two o'clock by the watch Morris and the trainer loomed in sight. Both greeted me cordially. Morris, acting as spokesman, said: "Did you bring the money?" I said, "Yes, Mr. Morris, I was at the bank at ten o'clock this morning and brought all I had, two hundred and fifteen dollars."

"That's good," said Morris. "Today I, intend showing you how to earn money without working. Today is going to be the start of your career as a good business man."

I thanked him. He then turned to the trainer and said : "Now, Jack, you go over to the stable. Be sure and hop the horse. Give him an extra load, because this means a great deal to Mr. Brolaski and yourself. Be sure and tell the jockey that Mr. Bropo laski will have a bet down for him, as well as yourself, and be sure and hop the horse."

Turning to me he said : "Of course, Mr. Brolaski, you will put a bet down for the jockey?"

"Certainly," said I. If Morris had asked me I would have put a bet down for the King of England. . All I could see was the winning of big money and getting it into my possession.

The trainer left us. Morris whispered to me, confidentially: "Now, Mr. Brolaski, we had better not be seen together, as my employer may accidentally stroll this way. Our horse starts in the third race. I don't want you to bet a cent until that time. I want you to go up into the grand stand and watch the first and second races, and meet me here for the third race."

I thanked him and told him I would obey instructions.

Just about the time he left me Officer Cunningham, who was in charge of the race track police, and knew me well, came to me and said: "Harry, what are you doing here? Does your father know you are here?" I said he did not.

"Well," said he, "you had better take an old bird's advice and not bet on the ponies. If your old man knew you were out here he would break your neck."

I laughed and said: "I guess I can take care of myself. I don't need any advice from you or my old man."

With that egotistical shot I sauntered up into the grand stand to watch the running of the first and second races. I must say they did not enthuse me. I did not see any sport in it. The finishing of these two races was close, but I did not have any money wagered on the contest and merely looked on in calm wonderment at my new surroundings.

After the finish of the second race I was the first person out of the grand stand, and hurried to the fruit stand to meet Morris, whom I found there waiting for me. He took me into the betting ring, saying as we walked along: "Take that badge ofif the lapel of your coat, Mr. Brolaski, as I don't want any of the touts to get hold of you. If they see you are wearing that badge they will know you are a beginner." I did as Morris requested.

In a little while, when the betting ring had become congested with people, and the bookmakers had put up the prices against the horses on their slates, Morris whispered to me: "Now follow me with your money and bet it as I direct."

We walked up to a bookmaker and I bet him one hundred dollars on the horse named by Morris, and received a ticket calling for eight hundred dollars in the event of the horse winning the race. He then took me over to another bookmaker and there I bet fifty dollars on the same horse and received a ticket calling for five hundred dollars, the odds on the horse having gone up from eight to one to ten to one.

Morris said : "Now, Mr. Brolaski, you go up into the grand stand and sit down. Leave the other sixty-five dollars with me and I will have it bet for the jockey and trainer."

He cautioned me again not to speak to anyone, and I left him and went up into the grand stand.

In about fifteen minutes Morris came to me in the grand stand and said: "I bet the other sixty-five dollars, fifty dollars for the trainer and fifteen dollars for the jockey. I sent the tickets over to the stable. Now, as soon as this race is over, Mr. Brolaski, you meet me again at the fruit stand. I am going to place a lot of money for the owner of the horse now."

My feelings and emotions from the time he left me until the horses came out of the paddock and went to the post were something terrible. My brain was in a whirl. I was all on nettles, all in a tremble. I was not myself ; I was like a man intoxicated; I saw visions.

In a few moments the horses went to the post and were off! They all looked alike to me, colors, jockeys and horses. I saw one mass of horse-flesh over on the back stretch. In a moment or two they were at the three-quarter pole, and then, in a few seconds, they were rounding into the stretch. I still could not distinguish my horse from any of the rest, but about the time they reached the paddock gate I noticed the colors of the horse that I had bet on and saw that it wa? in front by about a length.

From the time I distinguished my horse until the finish I was like a crazy man. I stood on my chair and shouted, "Come on, come on !" I snapped my fingers. When the finish came I would have sworn my horse won by six or eight lengths, when as a matter of fact he only won by a nose.

When I saw the number of my horse hung up I relaxed somewhat from the strain under which I had been laboring, and was actually weak from excitement; for the gambling fever had absolute control of me.

The stocks, the ducking stool, the pillory and the rock pile are the proper homes for the professional crooked gambler, but those whom he robs deserve only pity. No person who has not felt it can appreciate the absorbing passion, the fierce lust for gain that seizes upon the victim of the gambling mania. At first he skirts only the outer edge of the whirlpool, trying to capture here and there a little fish, the silvery sheen of whose scales entices him. Grown bolder with success, and quite confident of his ability to withdraw at will, he steps in a little deeper, and then a little deeper, to obtain larger .fish. Bye and bye the swift, circling, inexorable current seizes him. His feet lose their hold. He ceases to struggle, or even to wish to struggle. He abandons everything to the fierce passion of the swirl. Conscience is stifled. The calls of honor fall upon deafened ears. The pleas of wife and children dre unheeded. The demon of greed has him in its

Easy Money.

dire, relentless clutch, and at the last he is sucked into the vortex whose bottom is in the fires of hell ! It might have saved twenty years of my life to decency if the horse on which I had bet my money had lost the race. But, unfortunately for me, he won.

IPAO^^MA'

>o

FIFTH RACE

BRONZE WiN(r 102 HARRY NEW %

M^l C£JO/i/

Ukeview Belle 95 HOODWINK 93

SHR conoN «

UniE ELtilN «ll

Aurr

BitUCK IM

EV4 RICE 90

/ />2

3-^ /-3 3 5-3,

60 \&0

Bookmakers' Slate Showing the Betting Prices to the Public,

and I thought, poor fool that I was, that I was the smartest individual on the race track, and I would not have exchanged the friendship of Morris for that of the President of the United States, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Andrew Carnegie combined.

As a matter of fact I was the rawest sucker in the City of St. Louis. Morris had probably made with one, two or three other greenhorns the same arrangement that he had with me, designating in each instance a different horse. If any one of these horses won the race, Morris would share the winnings of his victim and explain to the others how it was that they lost. He would also obtain from each of his customers as he did from me, money to place for the jockey and trainer of the "fixed" horse, and this money he would place where it would do the most good, namely, in his pocket.

I cantered down stairs as fast as I could and met Morris, who said, "I will get these tickets cashed for you."

"No," said I, "I will get them cashed myself. Show me where to go."

He did. I received from one bookmaker nine hundred dollars and from another one five hundred and fifty dollars, making fourteen hundred and fifty dollars. Morris then took me to the second floor of the grand stand and explained to me about dividing the money. He said that I had fourteen hundred and fifty dollars, of which he was entitled to one-half, as this was customary. I gave him seven hundred and twenty-five dollars, which left me winner on the day of five hundred and ten dollars.

Morris, of course, did not bet the sixty-five dollars that he was supposed to have wagered for the trainer and jockey, and he would not have shown up to meet me had my horse not won. He stood to win seven hundred and twenty-five dollars if the horse Avon, and sixty-five dollars if it lost; which would have been a good day's work for him.

Morris escorted me to the gate of the race track and would not permit me to stay and witness the other three races, explaining to me that the touts were very dangerous and they might try to take my money away from me. I rebelled and said, "Oh no, Mr. Morris, I am too old a bird now for any tout to control me." But he insisted on seeing me on the street car that was headed for the city.

Upon arriving at the steamer "Annie P. Silver," about five o'clock in the afternoon, I was met by my father, who wanted to know where I had been, and in a very lordly manner I informed him that I had been to the race track and had won five hundred and ten dollars on a "sure thing," and that he had better get some one to take my place on the first of the month, as I intended to quit my position, that I was tired of slaving, and had found a new friend who was going to make me rich.

My father sat back in his chair, looked me squarely in the eye and gave me the first strenuous lecture of my life, using much of the vocabulary of the average Mississippi River steamboat captain. He said that of all the pinheads, of all the fools, and of all the weak-kneed sucklings of boys that he had ever seen or known I clapped the climax. He denounced Mr. Morris as a tout, a thief, a crook, a confidence man and everything on earth but what was right and just and good in a man.

I stood it as long as I could and then said : "Father, you don't know Mr. Morris. You don't know what he is. You never met him. I will not stand here and hear him abused. Here is the money. Seeing is believing."

When my father saw he could not control me by abusive methods and harsh talk, he reasoned with me and talked with me for two hours, trying to win me away from my determination to become a gambler. But I had contracted the contagious disease and the germ had grown so fast after becoming inoculated into my system that mine was a hopeless case by seven o'clock that evening.

Chapter III. The Gambling Germ Grows— A Moth- Er's Love

The first use to which a novice usually puts his first illicit gains is to make extravagant expenditure of a portion of them. I proved no exception to the rule. I did not return to a healthful home supper, as had always been my custom, but invited an old acquaintance of my own age to dine with me at Milford's restaurant. I ordered the costliest dishes on the menu, which we washed down with "White Rock" and "Green Seal;" and having tossed the waiter a tip equal to what had theretofore been with me a day's earnings, we adjourned to the Grand Billiard Hall at the corner of Sixth and Pine Streets. There we beheld a pin pool game in progress. The game-keeper would place a dozen little numbered balls in a leather bottle, shake them up well and toss one to each bettor, who had previously paid the necessary entrance money; the remainder of the balls being left in the bottle.

I knew as little about the game as a bull calf knows about cooking an omelette, but promptly stepped up to the table to take part in the game; and shortly after midnight I had succeeded in divesting myself of one hundred and ten dollars of my race-track winnings.

Months later the mysteries and miseries of pin pool were explained to me, and I learned how easily I had been parted from my money. I gambled on the high. Each player on receipt of a ball would call out its number. One of the players would wait until the others had called out their numbers, then the sure-thing player would call a higher number than the highest called, provided the highest number was called by a sucker. I played the part of sucker on that occasion, and played it to perfection. I was too much of a gentleman to ask the winner to exhibit the ball whose number he had called. I took his word for it, and the dealer, who was in with him, also took his word for it.

Months subsequently, after I had graduated from the producing to the consuming class, I made a deal with the game-keeper, and together we pursued the honest industry of gathering in at the pool table the surplus funds of confiding and convivial youths.

Years afterwards, at the mining camp of Hell's Delight, in Rattlesnake Canyon, Arizona, in .company with an honest partner, I attempted to introduce the governing principle of St. Louis pool into a friendly game of poker.

I would call my opponent's bet, and when he said "kings," and exhibited his hand, I would call out "aces," gather in the pot with one hand, and with the other toss my cards on the table, face downward. My confederate would quickly pick up the cards and shufifle them into the deck.

This plan worked well for a while, until I "called" a grizzled miner, who was in the game, and who responded, "jacks." I said "queens," and threw my cards face down on the table, having only a pair of tens. "Hold on, sonny," said he, placing a huge horny paw over my cards. "If you have got queens thar are five of sich in the deck ; for, with my jacks I've got three queens myself;" and he exhibited his hand.

"Oh well," said I, "your hand is the best; take the pot."

"Nat'r'ly," said he, "I'll take the pot; but that ain't all I'll take. Gentlemen who make mistakes in their hands are required by the rules of this yere camp to rectify them. You and your pal here hev made several sich mistakes by which you have captured eighty dollars of my money, where if you had not made sich mistakes I would hev had eighty dollars of your money. You want to hand me over between you one hundred and sixty dollars, and to do it pretty damned quick, and then to get out of this yere camp on the stage tomorrow morning. If you don't do it, you won't leave it at all; for the boys are just aching for a hanging bee, and you pair will make a good starter for one."

We contributed one hundred and sixty dollars to the exchequer of the honest miner, and promptly, if not cheerfully; and we were out-going passengers on the stage the next morning.

To return to our "mutton," as the French writers say, my friend and I, along with two other festive youths, after leaving the pool-room, hired a hack to take us through the red-light district. It is not considered the proper thing on such excursions for any of the party to really stray from the paths of rectitude. You do not tarry long in any one of the half dozen houses of evil repute that you visit. You call for wine. and enjoy for ten minutes the elevated society and intellectual conversation of the enamelled ladies, the puttied, painted and grained damsels who ply their vocations as bawds. I had never before been on such an expedition, and I did not see much fun in it; but it was up to me to make many different kinds of an ass of myself with my race-track money, so I "went the rounds."

After I had paid for the hack and a dozen bottles of champagne, and "loaned" my new-found friends the money they asked for, I reached my home at four o'clock in the morning, having squandered in all two hundred and twenty-five dollars of the five hundred and ten dollars won at the race track. I tip-toed up the front steps, put the key in the door noiselessly, and quietly ascended the stairs.

When I reached the second floor I heard my mother's voice calling, "Harry, come here." I went into her room, kissed her and she then asked me where I had been. I choked up a little bit, but bravely told her the truth. She said : "Well, go to bed now. Have a good night's sleep and we will talk it over in the morning."

This hurt me a thousand times more than the lecture my father had given me for two hours.

Being completely exhausted and tired out, I went to bed, but could not sleep. My dreams this first night were something terrible. I was seeing the world, and oh, such a world it was !

About five-thirty in the morning, after having about one and a half hours' sleep, or rather one and a half hours' tossing in bed with no sleep, I made up my mind to get up and leave a note for my mother, saying I would see her in the evening. I did not have the nerve to face her. I slipped out of the house without any breakfast, went down town where I bought coffee and eggs, and going down to the steamer "Annie P. Silver" I went to work about seven o'clock, an hour ahead of time.

Upon the arrival of my father at the ofifice of the steamer, about eight o'clock, I was in for another strenuous time. After a hog has departed this life he is placed in boiling water in order to enable the butcher to scrape his hair off ! I do not think there ever was a hog put in water as hot as that I was in, and which my father was boiling around me. But, instead of doing good, it only made me bullheaded and determined. I made up my mind to go and hunt up Morris, and I quit my position then and there; or, to do my father justice, I must say that I did not quit: my father fired me.

I waited around the boat, thinking perhaps I Could make up with my father, and wondering where I would be able to find Mr. Morris, v.'hen, about nine-thirty, he and . Jack, the trainer, appeared. My father saw them coming and he joined us.

A teamster exhorting an impenitent and refractory mule has one vocabulary. The first mate of a Mississippi River steamer, who seeks to expedite the movements of the deck hands when they are transporting wood from the levee at midnight upon their backs, has another; but no expert in philology, no dictionary maker in Europe or America could have equalled my father that morning in pungency and fluency of speech. He went so far as to doubt whether the mother of Morris was the possessor of a valid marriage certificate, and when he addressed Jack, the trainer, he fulfilled a text of scripture and "clothed himself with cursing as with a garment." If the language of my father were to be repeated and printed it would burn a hole in this book.