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Chumps
A Fairy Story for Overgrown-ups
(Vitagraph)
By PETER WADE
Mr. Wild Masher, The Satellite Marshall P. Wilder
Mr. Bun Johnny, The Full-grown Star John Bunny
Terpsine. The Cause Leah Baird
Mr. McSorley, The Climax William Shea
â– George, The Denouement William Wallace Reid
IF you had happened into the redwalled card room of the Adelphi 'most any evening, you could have peered over the edge of a mountainous back in its swelling dinner coat, or, without effort, glanced down from above its diminutive seat mate, and have seen the cribbage board between them. Later in the evening this huge ton of a man and his scant pennyweight of a friend could be found, with puffing puritanos, drawn up before the open fireplace. These two, like ill-assorted mastiff and terrier in kennel, had been club inseparables, running thru the long years of bachelorhood. Now, the biggest Adelphian stayed by the fire to nurse a full-blown paunch and a face with features as'overgrown as those fabulous ones on the moon. As the years had wagged, the littlest one, too, had shrunk into himself. What stood for mountains on Bun Johnny were dry valleys unto him. Beneath his Eton jacket of a coat were shoal cupboards of space, each rib a shelf. Upon both heads Time's hand had laid a ruthless shears, for each was shiny as a tonsured friar's. As these infirmities grew upon them, their cavalier spirits but rose the more blithely. Bun Johnny pushed his way thru the crowd by majesty of bulk ; Wild Masher slipped the more nimbly thru impossible spaces. Thus a friendly rivalry engendered between them. What mattered it if clubmates paired them as "udder and shanks"? When Masher had wriggled into a pin-head space, Bun Johnny, by stepping forth, made a room of it.
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Now, from being the fly to his friend's spider, Wild Masher had come to feel his equal or supplement in all things. Were a subscription list going the rounds and Bun Johnny's name appeared for generous dollars, Wild Masher must needs double it. Did Bun Johnny, from the bigness of his heart, give a cast-off suit to the portly night watchman. Wild Masher must pry him into a skin-tight overcoat. He did not originate benevolences, but he always went one better ; which is a good kind of old clothes morality, if you are tricking out a naked sinner. If Bun thought it not immoral to ease a hoarse beggar's thirst, Wild prodded down a square meal after it, often to the disgust of an alcoholic stomach.
So matters stood until the evening of that fatal pinochle game, which flaunted their rivalry in a shower of cards to the heavens. It is needless to say that Bun, taking realization by the ears, had studied it profoundly before challenging Wild. Wild, with a claw on anticipation's forelock, had primed deeply on the finer points of the game.
It was. then, each gloating in his secret knowledge, the challenge was given by Bun Johnny and accepted by Wild Masher. Across the greentopped table, the rivals in skill were seated, quite like a duello. Over their chair backs, with glistening shirt fronts, their friends and seconds stood. With serious face and much punctilio, Wild dealt the opening pair of hands. Surely the goddess of luck must have breathed a kiss upon each one of these marvelous cards; for,