ng his heart out over _her_," he'd explode, "over a girl who
is proving every day that she isn't worth a minute's heart-ache of a
man like him. I used to think she had brains, if any of them did; I
used to think that Barbara Allison was something besides a fluffy
little fool! Why can't he see for himself that she's just as worthless
as most of the rest of them?"

And from there, without knowing how truly funny such argument sounded,
coming from his lips, he would soar to wonderful heights of profanity.
But save for the pleasure which he took in the pyrotechnics, his
outbursts made little impression upon Fat Joe. The latter maintained a
sort of placid superiority, perhaps because he had learned early that
this attitude aggravated Garry's rages; perhaps because he was so very
certain of his man.

"I wouldn't go to getting all stirred up like this, so early in the
game," he'd reply with unvaried calm. "Shucks, it's too early to begin
counting either man's pile of chips--" either man to both minds meaning
Steve and Wickersham, without the naming of names. "You are too liable
to premature enthusiasms or discouragements, Garry. That's why I
mostly manage to beat you as easy as he beats me, whenever we throw a
hand or two. Ain't you never going to learn that a man must gamble a
bit on the cards still waiting to be dealt?"

And again, confidently:

"He's worried--of course he is! He ain't enjoyin' his meditations a
little bit these days, but he's enjoyin' 'em more all by himself than
he would be if we were up there with him, forcin' him to look
everlastingly like four aces, when it's deuces at present he's holding.
He's worried, and that's why I don't grow nervous myself. Because it
is only the man who is too sure who is awful likely to finish broke.
Don't you waste any pity on him yet, and I wouldn't let him hear me
passing uncomplimentary words concerning his girl, either, if I was
you. Lightning ain't particular where it strikes when it's been a long
time cooped up. Every man to his own taste in such matters, says
I--and shucks, man, can't you tell, just from seein' 'em together that
they was made for each other? If a man quit every time a woman began
to put him over the jumps we'd have a dangerous decrease in marriage
licences staring us in the face. He's just learning to care more for
her, that's all, and caring a lot about anybody never was a comfortable
state to be in. It's entirely too uncertain and un