hours after midnight
Not much ; another man had his job , a much better man and one who was regular , who could be depended on . That same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk . A game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the Barbary Coast . One of the players was a rancher named Toedt , a fellow-boarder at the Reno House , but the two other players were strangers ; and there in that narrow , dirty room , sawdust on the floor , festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single swinging lamp , figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted on the walls , there in the still hours after midnight , long after the barroom outside had been closed for the night , the last penny of Vandover 's estate was gambled away . The game ended in a quarrel , Vandover , very drunk , and exasperated at his ill luck , accusing his friend Toedt , the rancher , of cheating . Toedt kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick . Then they went away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room , racked with nausea , very drunk , fallen forward upon the table and crying into his folded arms .