Gullible's Travels, Etc.
By RING W. LARDNER
Author of You Know Me, Al, etc.
Illustrated by
MAY WILSON PRESTON
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright
The Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright 1917
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
"Please see that they's some towels put in 559."
CONTENTS
CARMEN
THREE KINGS AND A PAIR
GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS
THE WATER CURE
THREE WITHOUT, DOUBLED
Gullible's Travels, Etc.
CARMEN
We was playin' rummy over to Hatch's, and Hatch must of fell in a bed offour-leaf clovers on his way home the night before, because he playsrummy like he does everything else; but this night I refer to youcouldn't beat him, and besides him havin' all the luck my Missus playedlike she'd been bought off, so when we come to settle up we was plainseven and a half out. You know who paid it. So Hatch says:
"They must be some game you can play."
"No," I says, "not and beat you. I can run two blocks w'ile you'restoopin' over to start, but if we was runnin' a foot race between eachother, and suppose I was leadin' by eighty yards, a flivver'd prob'lycome up and hit you in the back and bump you over the finishin' lineahead o' me."
So Mrs. Hatch thinks I'm sore on account o' the seven-fifty, so shesays:
"It don't seem fair for us to have all the luck."
"Sure it's fair!" I says. "If you didn't have the luck, what would youhave?"
"I know," she says; "but I don't never feel right winnin' money atcards."
"I don't blame you," I says.
"I know," she says; "but it seems like we should ought to give it backor else stand treat, either one."
"Jim's too old to change all his habits," I says.
"Oh, well," says Mrs. Hatch, "I guess if I told him to loosen up he'dloosen up. I ain't lived with him all these years for nothin'."
"You'd be a sucker if you did," I says.
So they all laughed, and when they'd quieted down Mrs. Hatch says:
"I don't suppose you'd feel like takin' the money back?"
"Not without a gun," I says. "Jim's pretty husky."
So that give them another good laugh; but finally she says:
"What do you say, Jim, to us takin' the money they lose to us andgettin' four tickets to some show?"
Jim managed to stay conscious, but he couldn't answer nothin'; so myMissus says:
"That'd be grand of you to do it, but don't think you got to."
Well, of course, Mrs. Hatch knowed all the w'ile she didn't have to, butfrom what my Missus says she could tell that if they really give us theinvitation we wouldn't start no fight. So they talked it over betweenthemself w'ile I and Hatch went out in the kitchen and split a pint o'beer, and Hatch done the pourin' and his best friend couldn't say hegive himself the worst of it.