



Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and Distributed
Proofreaders











RUGGLES of RED GAP

By Harry Leon Wilson

1915



{Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"}



{Dedication}
TO HELEN COOKE WILSON




CHAPTER ONE


At 6:30 in our Paris apartment I had finished the Honourable George,
performing those final touches that make the difference between a man
well turned out and a man merely dressed. In the main I was not
dissatisfied. His dress waistcoats, it is true, no longer permit the
inhalation of anything like a full breath, and his collars clasp too
closely. (I have always held that a collar may provide quite ample
room for the throat without sacrifice of smartness if the depth be at
least two and one quarter inches.) And it is no secret to either the
Honourable George or our intimates that I have never approved his
fashion of beard, a reddish, enveloping, brushlike affair never nicely
enough trimmed. I prefer, indeed, no beard at all, but he stubbornly
refuses to shave, possessing a difficult chin. Still, I repeat, he was
not nearly impossible as he now left my hands.

"Dining with the Americans," he remarked, as I conveyed the hat,
gloves, and stick to him in their proper order.

"Yes, sir," I replied. "And might I suggest, sir, that your choice be
a grilled undercut or something simple, bearing in mind the undoubted
effects of shell-fish upon one's complexion?" The hard truth is that
after even a very little lobster the Honourable George has a way of
coming out in spots. A single oyster patty, too, will often spot him
quite all over.

"What cheek! Decide that for myself," he retorted with a lame effort
at dignity which he was unable to sustain. His eyes fell from mine.
"Besides, I'm almost quite certain that the last time it was the
melon. Wretched things, melons!"

Then, as if to divert me, he rather fussily refused the correct
evening stick I had chosen for him and seized a knobby bit of
thornwood suitable only for moor and upland work, and brazenly quite
discarded the gloves.

"Feel a silly fool wearing gloves when there's no reason!" he
exclaimed pettishly.

"Quite so, sir," I replied, freezing instantly.

"Now, don't play the juggins," he retorted. "Let me be comfortable.
And I don't mind telling you I stand to win a hundred quid this very
evening."

"I dare say," I replied. The sum was more than needed, but I had cause
to be thus cynical.

"From the American Johnny with the eyebrows," he went on with a quite
pathetic enthusiasm. "We're to play their American game of
poker--drawing poker as they call it. I've watched them play for near
a fortnight. It's beastly simple. One has only to know when to bluff."

"A hundred pounds, yes, sir. And if one loses----"

He flashed me a look so deucedly queer that it fair chilled me.

"I fancy you'll be even more interested than I if I lose," he remarked
in tones of a curious evenness that were somehow rather deadly. The
words seemed pregnant with meaning, but before I could weigh them I
heard him noisily descending the stairs. It was only then I recalled
having noticed that he had not changed to his varnished boots, having
still on his feet the doggish and battered pair he most favoured. It
was a trick of his to evade me with them. I did for them each day all
that human boot-cream could do, but they were things no sensitive
gentleman would endure with evening dress. I was glad to reflect that
doubtless only Americans would observe them.

So began the final hours of a 14th of July in Paris that must ever be
memorable. My own birthday, it is also chosen by the French as one on
which to celebrate with carnival some one of those regrettable events
in their own distressing past.

To begin with, the day was marked first of all by the breezing in of
his lordship the Earl of Brinstead, brother of the Honourable George,
on his way to England from the Engadine. More peppery than usual had
his lordship been, his grayish side-whiskers in angry upheaval and his
inflamed words exploding quite all over the place, so that the
Honourable George and I had both perceived it to be no time for
admitting our recent financial reverse at the gaming tables of Ostend.
On the contrary, we