to pay that," I says.

"That's neither here nor there," he says. "Luck's got to turn. The wheel
ain't ever been made that could stand that strain much longer."

And here Luella Stultz comes up and says Mrs. Wales wants to know how
much she could bet all at once if she happened to want to. I could just
see Cora having a sharp pain in the heart like a knife thrust when she
thought what she would of win by betting ten dollars instead of one.
Cousin Egbert answers Luella quite viciously.

"Tell that dame the ceiling sets the limit now," says he; "but if that
ain't lofty enough I'll have a skylight sawed into it for her."

Then he goes over to watch, himself, being all ruined up by these
plungers. Leonard was saying: "Now don't be rash, Pettie!" And Pettie
was telling him it was his negative mind that had kept her from betting
five dollars every clip, and look what that would mean to their pile!

Cousin Egbert give 'em one look and says, right out loud, Leonard Wales
is the biggest ham that was ever smoked, and he'd like to meet him, man
to man, outside; then he goes off muttering that he can be pushed so
far, but in the excitement of the play no one pays the least attention
to him. A little later I see him all alone out in the hall again. He was
scrunched painfully up in a chair till he looked just like this here
French metal statue called _Lee Penser_, which in our language means
"The Thinker." I let him think, not having the heart to prong him again
so quick.

And the game goes merrily on, with Sandy collecting steadily on his
hunch and Cora Wales telling her husband the truth about himself every
time one of these three numbers didn't win; she exposed some very
distressing facts about his nature the time she put five apiece on the
three numbers and the single-o come up. It was a mad life, that last
hour, with a lot of other enraged ladies round the layout, some being
mad because they hadn't had money to play the hunch with, and others
because they hadn't had the nerve.

Then somebody found it was near midnight and the crowd begun to fall
away. Cousin Egbert strolls by and says don't quit on his account--that
they can stick there and play their hunch till the bad place freezes
over, for all he cares; and he goes over to the bar and takes a drink
all by himself, which in him is a sign of great mental disturbance.

Then, for about twenty minutes, I was chatting with the Mes-dames
Ballard and Price about what a grand