“Oh, not a dozen,” Smoke replied.  “We couldn’t sell a dozen.  We’re not retailers; we’re speculators.  We can’t break our own market.  We’ve got a hard and fast corner, and when we sell out it’s the whole corner or nothing.”

“How many have you got, and how much do you want for them?”

“How many have we, Shorty?” Smoke inquired.

Shorty cleared his throat and performed mental arithmetic aloud.  “Lemme see.  Nine hundred an’ seventy-three minus nine, that leaves nine hundred an’ sixty-two.  An’ the whole shootin’-match, at ten a throw, will tote up just about nine thousand six hundred an’ twenty iron dollars.  Of course, Wild Water, we’re playin’ fair, an’ it’s money back for bad ones, though they ain’t none.  That’s one thing I never seen in the Klondike—­a bad egg.  No man’s fool enough to bring in a bad egg.”

“That’s fair,” Smoke added.  “Money back for the bad ones, Wild Water.  And there’s our proposition—­nine thousand six hundred and twenty dollars for every egg in the Klondike.”

“You might play them up to twenty a throw an’ double your money,” Shorty suggested.

Wild Water shook his head sadly and helped himself to the beans.  “That would be too expensive, Shorty.  I only want a few.  I’ll give you ten dollars for a couple of dozen.  I’ll give you twenty—­but I can’t buy ’em all.”

“All or none,” was Smoke’s ultimatum.

“Look here, you two,” Wild Water said in a burst of confidence.  “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, an’ don’t let it go any further.  You know Miss Arral an’ I was engaged.  Well, she’s broken everything off.  You know it.  Everybody knows it.  It’s for her I want them eggs.”

“Huh!” Shorty jeered.  “It’s clear an’ plain why you want ’em with the shells on.  But I never thought it of you.”

“Thought what?”

“It’s low-down mean, that’s what it is,” Shorty rushed on, virtuously indignant.  “I wouldn’t wonder somebody filled you full of lead for it, an’ you’d deserve it, too.”

Wild Water began to flame toward the verge of one of his notorious Berserker rages.  His hands clenched until the cheap fork in one of them began to bend, while his blue eyes flashed warning sparks.  “Now look here, Shorty, just what do you mean?  If you think anything underhanded—­”

“I mean what I mean,” Shorty retorted doggedly, “an’ you bet your sweet life I don’t mean anything underhanded.  Overhand’s the only way to do it.  You can’t throw ’em any other way.”

“Throw what?”

“Eggs, prunes, baseballs, anything.  But Wild Water, you’re makin’ a mistake.  They ain’t no crowd ever sat at the Opery House that’ll stand for it.  Just because she’s a actress is no reason you can publicly lambaste her with hen-fruit.”

For the moment it seemed that Wild Water was going to burst or have apoplexy.  He gulped down a mouthful of scalding coffee and slowly recovered himself.