Fancies and Goodnights

AH THE UNIVERSITY

Just outside London there lived an old father who dearly loved his only son. Accordingly, when the boy was a youngster of some eighteen years, the old man sent for him and, with a benevolent glimmer of his horn-rimmed spectacles, said, «Well, Jack, you are now done with school. No doubt you are looking forward to going to the university.»

«Yes, Dad, I am,» said the son.

«You show good judgment,» said the father. «The best years of one's whole life are unquestionably those which are spent at the university. Apart from the vast honeycomb of learning, the mellow voices of the professors, the venerable gray buildings, and the atmosphere of culture and refinement, there is the delight of being in possession of a comfortable allowance.»

«Yes, Dad,» said the son.

«Rooms of one's own,» continued the father, «little dinners to one's friends, endless credit with the tradespeople, pipes, cigars, claret, Burgundy, clothes.»

«Yes, Dad,» said the son.

«There are exclusive little clubs,» said the old man, «all sorts of sports, May Weeks, theatricals, balls, parties, rags, binges, scaling of walk, dodging of proctors, fun of every conceivable description.»

«Yes! Yes, Dad!» cried the son.

«Certainly nothing in the world is more delightful than being at the university,» said the father. «The springtime of life! Pleasure after pleasure! The world seems a whole dozen of oysters, each with a pearl in it. Ah, the university! However, I'm not going to send you there.»

«Then why the hell do you go on so about it?» said poor Jack.

«I did so in order that you might not think I was carelessly underestimating the pleasures I must call upon you to renounce,» said his father. «You see, Jack, my health is not of the best; nothing but champagne agrees with me, and if I smoke a second-rate cigar, I get a vile taste in my month. My expenses have mounted abominably and I shall have very little to leave to you, yet my dearest wish is to see you in a comfortable way of life.»

«If that is your wish, you might gratify it by sending me to the university,» said Jack.

«We must think of the future,» said his father. «You will have your living to earn, and in a world where culture is the least marketable of assets. Unless you are to be a schoolmaster or a curate, you will gain no great advantage from the university.»

«Then what am I to be?» the young man asked.

«I read only a little while ago,» said his father, «the following words, which flashed like sudden lightning upon the gloom in which I was considering your future: 'Most players are weak.' These words came from a little brochure upon the delightful and universally popular game of poker. It is a game which is played for counters, commonly called chips, and each of these chips represents an agreeable sum of money.»

«Do you mean that I am to be a card-sharper?» cried the son.

«Nothing of the sort,» replied the old man promptly. «I am asking you to be strong, Jack. I am asking you to show initiative, individuality. Why learn what everyone else is learning? You, my dear boy, shall be the first to study poker as systematically as others study languages, science, mathematics, and so forth — the first to tackle it as a student I have set aside a cosy little room with chair, table, and some completely new packs of cards. A bookshelf contains several standard works on the game, and a portrait of Machiavelli hangs above the mantelpiece.»

The young man's protests were vain, so he set himself reluctantly to study. He worked hard, mastered the books, wore the spots off a hundred packs of cards, and at the end of the second year he set out into the world with his father's blessing and enough cash to sit in on a few games of penny ante.

After Jack left, the old man consoled himself with his glass of champagne and his first-rate cigar and those other little pleasures which are the solace of the old and the lonely. He was getting on very well with these when one day the telephone rang. It was an overseas call from Jack, whose existence the old man had all but forgotten.

«Hullo, Dad!» cried the son in tones of great excitement «I'm in Paris, sitting in on a game of poker with some Americans.»

«Good luck to you!» said the old man, preparing to hang up the receiver.

«Listen, Dad!» cried the son. «It's like this. Well — just for once I'm playing without any limit.»

«Lord have mercy on you!» said the old man.

«There's two of them still in,» said the son. «They've raised me fifty thousand dollars and I've already put up every cent I've got»

«I would rather,» groaned the old man, «see a son of mine at the university than in such a situation.»

«But I've got four kings!» cried the young man.

«You can be sure the others have aces or straight flushes,» said the old man. «Back down, my poor boy. Go out and play for cigarette ends with the habitués of your doss house.»

«But listen, Dad!» cried the son. «This is a stud round, and nothing wild. I've seen an ace chucked in. I've seen all the tens and fives chucked in. There isn't a straight flush possible.»

«Is that so?» cried the old man. «Never let it be said I didn't stand behind my boy. Hold everything. I'm coining to your assistance.»

The son went back to the card table and begged his opponents to postpone matters until his father could arrive, and they, smiling at their cards, were only too willing to oblige him.

A couple of hours later the old man arrived by plane at Le Bourget, and shortly thereafter, he was standing beside the card table, rubbing his hands, smiling, affable, the light glinting merrily upon his horn-rimmed spectacles. He shook hands with the Americans and noted their prosperous appearances. «Now what have we here?» said he, sliding into his son's seat and fishing out his money.

«The bet,» said one of the opponents, «stands at fifty thousand dollars. Seen by me. It's for you to see or raise.»

«Or run,» said the other.

«I trust my son's judgment,» said the old man. «I shall raise fifty thousand dollars before I even glance at these cards in my hand.» With that he pushed forward a hundred thousand dollars of his own money.

«I'll raise that hundred thousand dollars,» said the first of his opponents.

«Ill stay and see,» said the other.

The old man looked at his cards. His race turned several colours in rapid succession. A low and quavering groan burst from his lips and he was seen to hesitate for a long time, showing all the signs of an appalling inward struggle. At last he summoned up his courage and, pushing out his last hundred thousand (which represented all the cigars, champagne, and other little pleasures he had to look forward to), he licked his lips several times and said, «I'll see you.»

«Four kings,» said the first opponent, laying down his hand.

«Hell!» said the second. «Four queens.»

«And I,» moaned the old man, «have four knaves.» With that he turned about and seized his son by the lapels of his jacket, shaking him as a terrier does a rat. «Curse the day,» said he, «that I ever became the father of a damned fool!»

«I swear I thought they were kings,» cried the young man.

«Don't you know that the V is for valets?» said his father.

«Good God!» the son said. «I thought the V was something to do with French kings. You know, Charles, Louis, V one, V two, V three. Oh, what a pity I was never at the university!»

«Go,» said the old man. «Go there, or go to Hell or wherever you wish. Never let me see or hear from you again.» And he stamped out of the room before his son or anyone else could say a word, even to tell him it was high-low stud they were playing and that the four knaves had won half the pot.

The young man, pocketing his share, mused that ignorance of every sort is deplorable, and, bidding his companions farewell, left Paris without further delay, and very soon he was entered at the university.