Checkers Author:Henry Blossom Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill A number of weeks had come and gone ere I again laid eyes upon Checkers, and then it chanced most unexpectedly. I had stayed at my office late one even... more »ing, finishing up some odd jobs which I had allowed to accumulate. The additional work and the lateness of the hour lent a keen edge to my appetite, and I decided to dine down town and perhaps drop into one of the theaters. As I hastened along on my way to Kinsley's (I am not a member of the down-town clubs) a figure stepped out of a neighboring doorway, and brushed against me in passing. It was Checkers. I knew him at once. But I gave no sign of recognition and hoped to escape him unobserved. A futile hope, for he knew me as quickly, and in an instant was by my side. "Why, Mr. Preston," he exclaimed grabbing and shaking my passive hand. " Say, on the dead, I 'm glad to see you; why is it you have n't been out to the track? I 've had ' something good ' nearly every day. I wish I had seen you an hour ago. I 've been playing ' the bank,' and they 've cleaned me flat. They say that's the squares! game on earth, but the cards do run dead wrong for me. Where you going —to eat? Well, say, as the tramp says, 'Me stomach links me treat's cut.' Back me against a supper, will you? It's a hundred to one I get the best of it." And so he rattled on and on, never waiting for his questions to be answered, careless and slangy as ever. As I turned into Kinsley's I hesitated, as to whether simply to dismiss him straight, or to give him a dollar and tell him to go and satisfy his evident hunger. He saw me pause and read my thoughts, but he did not propose thus to be disposed of. "Come on," he said, starting quicklyahead and entering the elevator. "We 're going up to the cafe", ain't we?" I was greatly minded to turn on my hee...« less