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 of four-leaf clovers on his way home the night before, because he plays rummy like he does everything else; but this night I refer to you couldn't beat him, and besides him havin' all the luck my Missus played like she'd been bought off, so when we come to settle up we was plain seven 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're stoopin' over to start, but if we was runnin' a foot race between each other, and suppose I was leadin' by eighty yards, a flivver'd prob'ly come up and hit you in the back and bump you over the finishin' line ahead o' me."
So Mrs. Hatch thinks I'm sore on account o' the seven-fifty, so she says:
"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 you have?"
"I know," she says; "but I don't never feel right winnin' money at cards."
"I don't blame you," I says.
"I know," she says; "but it seems like we should ought to give it back or 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'd loosen 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 and gettin' four tickets to some show?"
