Then, when his head did finally clear out, he began to look himself
over; to discover and explore, as you might say. When he looked in the
glass he must have nearly fell dead. His yellow moustache was gone.
Then, he’d gone to sleep in old clothes and he woke up in a swell
high-class rig, silk-lined, and without a spot, patch, or sign of wear.
He had on silk gauze underwear, patent leather shoes, diamonds in his
shirt-front, cuff-links, and a pair of pretty hot socks. Feeling in his
pockets, as a man will, he found a gold watch and chain, a gold
cigarette case, a corkscrew mounted in rubies and three hundred and
forty-two dollars in bills and coin. Every one in the deal had been too
busy to touch him while he was drugged.
Long before he got his senses his arm began to feel funny. After he’d
investigated the costume, he took off the Willy-boy coat and stripped up
his shirt sleeve. There was a tattoo mark, smarting like sin, with the
name “DOTTY” in beautiful capital letters! Well, when he saw that he
went right up into the air. He was just like that old woman in the
nursery rhyme—“Lawk-a-massy on us, this is none of I!”
The tattoo mark was his only clue. I was the only one he knew in the
business, so he came down to me and wanted to know how, and when, and
where, and why, and what-the-devil.
“Look here, my son,” says I, “what are you kicking about, anyway? You go
to sleep with eight dollars on your back and two bits in your jeans. You
wake up with about a seven hundred and fifty dollar rig on, and a wad in
your pocket, more than you ever had in your life. The thing for you to
do,” I says, “is to lose yourself before you’re called for, and to stay
lost, good and hard! Next time you fade away on the water-front, you may
wake up in a jumper and overalls, shovelling garbage! You can’t expect
to draw a straight flush in diamonds every deal: next shuffle you may
catch deuces. You take my advice and drop a part of that roll of yours
for a ticket in the ’Owl’ train to-night, before you’re enchanted back
again.”
“All right,” he says, “I’ll do it. But for heaven’s sake, tell me just
one thing, and I’ll ask no more questions. _Who in blazes is Dotty?_”
“Aw,” I says, “she’s the fairy godmother of this pipe dream. She’s
changed into a sea-gull by this time!”
* * * * *
“Well,” concluded the rubber, “he skipped, and I have never seen him
since, from that day till to-night, when I found you scrapping with him,
for this man is Harry Maidslow for sure. If you want to talk to him now,
he’ll probably be all right. He’s had time to have a plunge, and you’ll
find him sleeping upstairs. I’ve got to go home, so good-by. Come round
again some time and tell me about him!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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