Topic 4
THE CHARLEY THOMPSON CLUB

SO far as I know, Colonel Roosevelt never indulged in cards.  He did not, however, object to others doing so.  "I am not bigoted in the matter" was his way of putting it.  One of his standing jokes had to do with the proneness of some of his newspaper friends to "kill" a little time playing poker.

Frequently a local committeeman boarding the Colonel's train before his city was reached, would, after the social amenities had been attended to, ask where the newspaper men were, or for some individual correspondent.

"I do not know," the Colonel would say, "but I suspect they are attending a meeting of the Charley Thompson Finger Club."

"And what is that?" the committeeman would ask.

" It is," the Colonel would answer, "a very exclusive organization devoted to the study of financial problems, psychology, and the relative and varying values of certain pieces of paper.  In a word, it is a poker club.  At least they say they play poker.  Some say they only play at poker.

"It had its start in this way.  On one of my trips some years ago, Charley Thompson, of the Times (New York), cut a finger rather badly opening a bottle of mucilage.  That evening after dinner the boys sat around talking over the events of the day.  After a while one arose, stretched himself, and said he guessed he’d go back to see how Charley Thompson's finger was getting along.  Soon another, then another, went back to see about Thompson's finger, until I was left alone.  By this time I had become a bit sympathetic and decided that I, too, should look in on the invalid.

"They were all there playing poker — Charley Thompson included.  Thereafter when the boys all disappeared and remained quiet for any considerable period, I always felt it safe to assume the Charley Thompson Finger Club was in session, though its founder might be hundreds of miles away."

Sometimes the Colonel would look in on a "meeting" to joke the boys about their progress or to extend mock sympathy to the stranger they might have taken in.  There was no rule as to the size of the game, nothing approaching a dictum from the Colonel as to what the limit should or should not be, but it was always small.  For this, there was a reason.  Instinctively the boys knew that the Colonel would not like to hear of a large limit game—of anything approaching real gambling by any of his party.  So they refrained from high play just as they refrained from carrying liquor with them.

Once, I believe, some one, more venturesome, or less well acquainted with the Colonel than the rest, did arrange for a liberal stock of stimulants being placed aboard the train.  The Colonel did not say very much.  That little, I believe, he said to one man.  The balance of the trip was " dry " so far as the train, at least, was concerned.

The Colonel would not quarrel with or attempt to say to any of his party that he should not take a drink if he felt so inclined, or pack a flask in his luggage, but he did object to anything that by twist of the imagination might be considered a drinking orgy or the making of one.  It was.  not his idea of the thing to do.