Read The Complete Works of Stephen Crane for Free Online Page A

furiously. “I want to get back to New York.”
    The conductor replied with sarcasm, “Maybe you think I’m stuck on it? I ain’t running the road. I’m running this train, and I run it according to orders.” Amid the dismal comforts of the waiting cars, Coleman felt all the profound misery of the rebuffed true lover. He had been sentenced, he thought, to a penal servitude of the heart, as he watched the dusky, vague ribbons of smoke come from the lamps and felt to his knees the cold winds from the brakemen’s busy flights. When the train started with a whistle and a jolt, he was elate as if in his abjection his beloved’s hand had reached to him from the clouds.
    When he had arrived in New York, a cab rattled him to an uptown hotel with speed. In the restaurant he first ordered a large bottle of champagne. The last of the wine he finished in sombre mood like an unbroken and defiant man who chews the straw that litters his prison house. During his dinner he was continually sending out messenger boys. He was arranging a poker party. Through a window he watched the beautiful moving life of upper Broadway at night, with its crowds and clanging cable cars and its electric signs, mammoth and glittering, like the jewels of a giantess.
    Word was brought to him that the poker players were arriving. He arose joyfully, leaving his cheese. In the broad hall, occupied mainly by miscellaneous people and actors, all deep in leather chairs, he found some of his friends waiting. They trooped up stairs to Coleman’s rooms, where as a preliminary, Coleman began to hurl books and papers from the table to the floor. A boy came with drinks. Most of the men, in order to prepare for the game, removed their coats and cuffs and drew up the sleeves of their shirts. The electric globes shed a blinding light upon the table. The sound of clinking chips arose; the elected banker spun the cards, careless and dexterous.
    Later, during a pause of dealing, Coleman said: “Billie, what kind of a lad is that young Coke up at Washurst?” He addressed an old college friend.
    “Oh, you mean the Sophomore Coke?” asked the friend. “Seems a decent sort of a fellow. I don’t know. Why?”
    “Well, who is he? Where does he come from? What do you know about him?”
    “He’s one of those Ohio Cokes — regular thing — father millionaire — used to be a barber — good old boy — why?”
    “Nothin’,” said Coleman, looking at his cards. “I know the lad. I thought he was a good deal of an ass. I wondered who his people were.”
    “Oh, his people are all right — in one way. Father owns rolling mills. Do you raise it, Henry? Well, in order to make vice abhorrent to the young, I’m obliged to raise back.”
    “I’ll see it,” observed Coleman, slowly pushing forward two blue chips. Afterward he reached behind him and took another glass of wine.
    To the others Coleman seemed to have something bitter upon his mind. He played poker quietly, steadfastly, and, without change of eye, following the mathematical religion of the game. Outside of the play he was savage, almost insupportable.
    “What’s the matter with you, Rufus?” said his old college friend, “ Lost your job? Girl gone back on you? You’re a hell of a host. We don’t get anything but insults and drinks.”
    Late at night Coleman began to lose steadily. In the meantime he drank glass after glass of wine. Finally he made reckless bets on a mediocre hand and an opponent followed him thoughtfully bet by bet, undaunted, calm, absolutely without emotion. Coleman lost; he hurled down his cards. “Nobody but a damned fool would have seen that last raise on anything less than a full hand.”
    “Steady. Come off. What’s wrong with you, Rufus?” cried his guests.
    “You’re not drunk, are you?” said his old college friend, puritanically.
    “‘Drunk’?” repeated Coleman.
    “Oh, say,” cried a man, “let’s play cards. What’s all this gabbling?”
    It was when a grey,