“Good work!” says he.  “I’ll approach her in the matter.”

So over he goes and tries to interest her in the dice games; but no, she thinks dice is low and a mere coloured person’s game.  So then he says to set down to the card table and play this here Canfield solitaire; she’s to be paid five dollars for every card she gets up and a whole thousand if she gets ’em all up.  That listens good to her till she finds she has to give fifty-two dollars for the deck first.  She says she knew there must be some catch about it.  Still, she tries out a couple of deals just to see what would happen, and on the first she would have won thirteen dollars and on the second eight dollars.  She figures then that by all moral rights Cousin Egbert owes her twenty-one dollars, and at least eight dollars to a certainty, because she was really playing for money the second time and merely forgot to mention it to him.

And while they sort of squabble about this, with Cousin Egbert very pig-headed or adamant, who should come in but this Sandy Sawtelle, that’s now sobbing out his heart in song down there; and with him is Buck Devine.  It seems they been looking for a game, and they give squeals of joy when they see this one.  In just two minutes Sandy is collecting thirty-five dollars for one that he had carefully placed on No. 11.  He gives a glad shout at this, and Leonard Wales and lady move over to see what it’s all about.  Sandy is neatly stacking his red chips and plays No. 11 once more, but No. 22 comes up.

“Gee!” says Sandy.  “I forgot.  Twenty-two, of course, and likewise thirty-three.”

So he now puts dollar bets on all three numbers, and after a couple more turns he’s collecting on 33, and the next time 22 comes again.  He don’t hardly have time to stack his chips, they come so fast; and then it’s No. 11 once more, amid rising excitement from all present.  Cora Wales is panting like the Dying Gamekeeper I once saw in the Eden Musee in New York City.  Sandy quits now for a moment.

“Let every man, woman, and child, come one, come all, across the room and crook the convivial elbow on my ill-gotten gains!” he calls out.

So everybody orders something; Tim Mahoney going in behind the bar to help out.  Even Cora Wales come over when she understood no expense was attached to so doing, though taking a plain lemonade, because she said alcohol would get one’s vibrations all fussed up, or something like that.

Cousin Egbert was still chipper after this reverse, though it had swept away about all he was to the good up to that time.

“Three rousing cheers!” says he.  “And remember the little ball still rolls for any sport that thinks he can Dutch up the game!”

While this drink is going on amid the general glad feeling that always prevails when some spendthrift has ordered for the house, Leonard Wales gets Buck Devine to one side and says how did Sandy do it?  So Buck tells him and Cora that Sandy took eleven stitches in Jerry’s hide yesterday afternoon and he was playing this hunch, which he had reason to feel was a first-class one.