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Page 70
"And nothing would have stopped them if they had only stuck to
cards and New York, but they must needs come up Rochester way, and
forge a name upon a cheque. It was my brother that did it, though
everyone knew that it was under the influence of Sparrow MacCoy.
I bought up that cheque, and a pretty sum it cost me. Then I went
to my brother, laid it before him on the table, and swore to him
that I would prosecute if he did not clear out of the country. At
first he simply laughed. I could not prosecute, he said, without
breaking our mother's heart, and he knew that I would not do that.
I made him understand, however, that our mother's heart was being
broken in any case, and that I had set firm on the point that I
would rather see him in Rochester gaol than in a New York hotel.
So at last he gave in, and he made me a solemn promise that he
would see Sparrow MacCoy no more, that he would go to Europe, and
that he would turn his hand to any honest trade that I helped him
to get. I took him down right away to an old family friend, Joe
Willson, who is an exporter of American watches and clocks, and I
got him to give Edward an agency in London, with a small salary and
a 15 per cent commission on all business. His manner and
appearance were so good that he won the old man over at once,
and within a week he was sent off to London with a case full
of samples.
"It seemed to me that this business of the cheque had really
given my brother a fright, and that there was some chance of his
settling down into an honest line of life. My mother had spoken
with him, and what she said had touched him, for she had always
been the best of mothers to him and he had been the great sorrow of
her life. But I knew that this man Sparrow MacCoy had a great
influence over Edward and my chance of keeping the lad straight lay
in breaking the connection between them. I had a friend in the New
York detective force, and through him I kept a watch upon MacCoy.
When, within a fortnight of my brother's sailing, I heard that
MacCoy had taken a berth in the Etruria, I was as certain as if
he had told me that he was going over to England for the purpose of
coaxing Edward back again into the ways that he had left. In an
instant I had resolved to go also, and to pit my influence against
MacCoy's. I knew it was a losing fight, but I thought, and my
mother thought, that it was my duty. We passed the last night
together in prayer for my success, and she gave me her own
Testament that my father had given her on the day of their marriage
in the Old Country, so that I might always wear it next my heart.
"I was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with Sparrow
MacCoy, and at least I had the satisfaction of spoiling his little
game for the voyage. The very first night I went into the smoking-
room, and found him at the head of a card-table, with a half a
dozen young fellows who were carrying their full purses and their
empty skulls over to Europe. He was settling down for his harvest,
and a rich one it would have been. But I soon changed all that.
"`Gentlemen,' said I, `are you aware whom you are playing
with?'
"`What's that to you? You mind your own business!' said he,
with an oath.
"`Who is it, anyway?' asked one of the dudes.
"`He's Sparrow MacCoy, the most notorious card-sharper in the
States.'
"Up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered
that he was under the flag of the effete Old Country, where
law and order run, and Tammany has no pull. Gaol and the gallows
wait for violence and murder, and there's no slipping out by the
back door on board an ocean liner.
"`Prove your words, you----!' said he.
"`I will!' said I. `If you will turn up your right shirt-
sleeve to the shoulder, I will either prove my words or I will eat
them.'
"He turned white and said not a word. You see, I knew
something of his ways, and I was aware of that part of the
mechanism which he and all such sharpers use consists of an elastic
down the arm with a clip just above the wrist. It is by means of
this clip that they withdraw from their hands the cards which they
do not want, while they substitute other cards from another hiding
place. I reckoned on it being there, and it was. He cursed me,
slunk out of the saloon, and was hardly seen again during the
voyage. For once, at any rate, I got level with Mister Sparrow
MacCoy.
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