Casino Kings have been very much in the news lately, but few can compare with our first Casino King, the inimitable, flamboyant, great-hearted Donovan Andree. He made money, and he flung away money. His many acts of kindness and generosity were legion.

About three decades ago, there was this young planter from the South who would sally forth to Colombo the weekend after pay day and have a flutter in Donovan’s ‘Three Clubs Casino’.

One day this planter lost heavily; in fact, his entire salary. Without money even to get back home, he sat in a corner of the casino, head in his hands, the picture of dejection.

Donovan Andree walking in, saw the hapless young man, almost in tears.

“What’s wrong, son?” asked Donovan, and the young planter told him the whole sad story.

“My dear chap,” said Donovan, placing a fatherly arm around the planter’s shoulders, “casinos are not for salaried people like you, they are for people with money to throw away.”

He then instructed the manager of the casino to refund every cent the planter had lost. Then he took the lad to the bar and gave him a few drinks on the house. Finally, he sent for the security officers outside the casino, and told them sternly that the young planter was never again to be allowed inside the casino.

***

My friend Sena is a confirmed bachelor, though many a pretty girl has given him the glad eye, prompting him to say, “It is easy to get married, but staying single is a difficult thing.” He has, however, been looking for the ideal woman for many years. But alas, he hasn’t found her, and now he has given up all hope.

Many years ago, when the local Lions’ Club was celebrating ‘World Services Day’, they distributed food parcels among the poor. My friend Sena was in charge of one such distribution centre, and noticing that one old man returned repeatedly to collect food parcels, Sena went up to the man and told him sternly: “That’s the third food parcel you have collected. I’ve been watching you.”

“Sir,” said the man piteously, “I have three wives!”

“Good Heavens, man,” gasped Sena. “You have three wives and here I am, unable to find even one! I congratulate you!”

And Sena had given the old Bluebeard a hundred-rupee bill.

***

One of our club members had run up several bar bills and despite many reminders, he had confessed that he was not in a position to pay them as his other vice, betting invariably left him broke. But one fine day, one of his ‘all-ons’ clicked, bringing him quite a packet. That evening he walked into the club like a lord, and with a flourish, settled all his outstanding bills. Then he pocketed the bills, ordered drinks all round, had a large one himself, went swaggering (or staggering?) home, had his dinner and slept.

Next morning, he went to the toilet, ascended the throne and gasped in dismay. For pasted on the inner side of the toilet door by an irate wife, were all the liquor bills he had settled the previous evening!

***

During a flu epidemic in Galle the doctors were kept busy. When a doctor (a private practitioner) walked into the club one evening, a member who was no poet but one after a few shots, recited this impromptu verse.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away!

No apple a day keeps the doctor in the pay!

And the patients at bay!”

***

One day an elderly member recalled the days of his youth. He said that in 1922, at the young age of 17 years, he had joined his uncle who had a curio shop in La Palmas, one of the seven Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. There were about 70 Galle traders who had settled down there. Business there was good and they were all happy. It had the Nuwara-Eliya climate. There were rice and curry, plenty of meat and fish, fruit and wine, with low cost living.

All that was till General Franco came to power in Spain. Thereafter it was not possible to remit the earnings to the motherland. Some Ceylonese merged with the indigenous population while the others came back to Ceylon, adding that he was one of them who returned to his native Galle and started a business of his own (in a rare field) which flourished.

***

Lakshman Jayakody was a Cabinet Minister at the time, who sometimes used to spend a holiday with his cousin at Galle, whenever he found the time. His cousin lived on the same road I lived. And sometimes they picked me up on their way to the club, in the evening.

Lakshman was a public-school product, a sportsman of the friendly and unassuming type, who enlivened us at the club. One day, he asked me what I knew of his electorate of Divulapitiya, when my thoughts drifted to the dark days of 1915 riots, with a ‘shoot at sight order’ under Martial Law, when a brave young man from a wealthy family in Divulapitiya, Mark Leo Fernando, tried to make peace, but was kept against a wall with his hands tied and shot dead in the name of Law and Order. Lakshman was lost in thought.

***

One of my cousins was afflicted with a terrible form of eczema and when he got these attacks, which was often, his feet and legs would be covered with tiny running sores. At last, unable to bear it any longer, he went to a well-known doctor and begged to be cured of his affliction. “Curing your eczema is not a big problem,” said the doctor. “But I must warn you that you may develop asthma as a result. Many people do, you know.” Having but the haziest idea of what asthma was, and what it entailed, my cousin replied, “That’s all right, doctor, I’ll take the risk. Anything is better than this cursed eczema.”

The doctor gave him a course of injections, and the eczema began to disappear. Not long afterwards, my cousin got his first attack of asthma. He sat up all night, wheezing, coughing, groaning and moaning, unable to breathe properly or even talk. And the entire household had to dance attendance on him, applying all sorts of oils and balms on his chest, back, nostrils and neck. Early next morning he rushed to the doctor who had treated him, and wheezed. “Doctor, doctor, for God’s sake, can I have my eczema back?”

***

Several years ago, a young doctor attached to the Galle Hospital, then at Mahamodara, on the Galle-Colombo road, was in the habit of going to Colombo every pay day. He would come back to his quarters at the hospital in the last bus. As he approached the Mahamodara bridge, he would ring the bell and get off. One pay day, coming back dog tired and a trifle drunk, he fell asleep in the bus, and got up all of a sudden to see the Mahamodara bridge looming ahead. He quickly rang the bell and hopped out. It was only after he had got off that he realised, to his dismay, that he had got off at the Gintota bridge. By now the bus had disappeared and with a groan he began walking towards Mahamodara, a good two-and-a-half miles away. As he reached the Dadella Cemetery, a car stopped beside him, and one of the occupants offered him a lift.

Gratefully he got in, but instead of getting a seat by the window he found himself sandwiched between two tough looking men. It didn’t take him long to realise that the four men were denizens of the underworld, and his thoughts flew to his pay packet in his pocket.

Then quite unexpectedly, the doctor caught a break when one of the gang asked him what he was doing at the cemetery at that ungodly hour of the night.

“Oh,” said the doctor, his voice casual, “I went to see a corpse!”

“Now, where are you going?”

“To the hospital mortuary to see another corpse!”

“Ammo, moo holmanak!” shouted one of the thugs. (“Ammo, this man is a ghost!) and pushing him out of the car, they fled!

****

Why is it that when the Chief Guest or his wife draws the winning ticket in a raffle, that person gives the ticket to one of the organisers to read out the name or the number of the winner? Is the Chief Guest illiterate or something? I ask this question because at a club social in the South several years ago, the first prize was a kerosene cooker. This was on display at the club, and while I was admiring it, one of the organisers of the social came up to me and whispered that a certain lady, the wife of a friend of his, was going to win it. “Are you a soothsayer?” I asked him in surprise. “How can you tell in advance who the winner will be?” The man just grinned and gave me a sort of pitying look, and said, “Wait and see”.

The raffle was the last event of the night, and the Chief Guest’s wife put a shapely hand into a bag containing all the raffle tickets, took one out and gave it to the organiser I had spoken to earlier. And lo and behold! He read out the name of his friend’s wife, just as he had predicted.

Then giving me a surreptitious wink, he tore up the ticket. I did not have the slightest doubt it was somebody else’s name on that ticket.