Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx & Rowland Barber

Author:Harpo Marx & Rowland Barber [Marx, Harpo & Barber, Rowland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Humour, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780879100360
Publisher: Limelight Editions
Published: 1970-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Unknown

CHAPTER 16

Playground Condemned

THE VOYAGE HOME on the Ile de France shaped up to be a quiet, dull passage. It would have been just that, too, if I hadn’t been undone by a good deed I did.

Everybody seemed to have blown his wad on the Continent that summer, and there wasn’t much money on board. I happened to have a few bucks left, but the only action going on was a game of two-handed stud between an elderly Connecticut real-estate developer and a handsome young Brazilian. They made it plain they didn’t want me in the game.

So I kibitzed. Right away I saw that the Brazilian was fattening up the American for the kill. He let him win a little at poker, then persuaded him they should change the game to craps. He let the old man make a few passes, then began to switch the dice on him and take him on a ride to the cleaners. It was very interesting to watch. The Brazilian was slick, but not too fast for me.

I got the old man aside at dinner and told him he was being swindled by the worst kind of shark, a dice-switcher. He thanked me and went to the Brazilian and accused him of cheating. The Brazilian challenged the real-estate man to a duel. He’d never been so insulted in his life. He put on such an act that the old guy wound up apologizing to him and turning on me. He said I ought to be reported to the captain for being a disturbing influence on board the ship.

The next day they were back at the crap table and the chips were moving faster than ever-in one direction, from North America to South. I was reminded of a fact I’d known for a long time: Nobody resents being called a sucker more than a sucker.

I turned my attention to pleasanter things, namely, the girls on board. I settled on a good-looking kid from Omaha who was a ball-bearing heiress. (And didn’t Woollcott have fun with that one!) She was a lot of laughs and, since she didn’t drink, a cheap date. I congratulated myself. It was going to be an inexpensive crossing. I would arrive in the States with almost all the dough I had when I left France.

Then, suddenly, my little affair became a triangle. Who should horn in but the old guy from Connecticut. It may have been the sea air, or he may have been sore at me still, but the old goat turned into a wolf. He puffed and panted after Miss Omaha and pestered her out of her mind. If he’d been twenty years younger I’d have clipped him one.

The Captain asked me to organize the entertainment for the last-night-out party, which was thrown to raise money for the Seamen’s Home. Going over on the Roma back in May I had staged a hell of a show, with a big auction, and we’d collected a couple of thousand bucks. This time it was different.

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