"Feeney didn't look very merry over this. Says he: 'Chicken coops, is it? And who's going to throw up the new business building and the opera house, and the hotel, and the like?'
"Carmody was laying for that question. He drew the two rough contracts out of his pocket.
"' Looks as if I'm It over here, don't it, Tim?' he asked Feeney, as the latter read over the two contracts with a gloomy countenance. 'Nice work, hey? That's what you get for monkeying around in bed all the morning, Tim. Why don't you be like me, now? I never go to bed,' etc. Carmody couldn't refrain from working that nice edge of his, and strung the dismal-faced Feeney for keeps. Feeney finally walked away, the picture of dejection, to see if there were any crumbs to be picked up in the way of rebuilding. He found, however, that all of the business men that had not already been got by Carmody were disposed to wait awhile for the disposition of insurance, and he didn't get a smell of the rebuilding. He walked around the still-smoking Dalles for the remainder of the day, figuring on how much Carmody was going to make out of his two big contracts. Carmody himself started in to open wine by way of celebration, so that by the time the night boat for Portland was ready to leave her slip he was pretty comfortable. Both he and Feeney took the night boat and I happened to be going down to Portland on the boat myself that night. Feeney had taken the bowl himself a bit during the day to assuage his depression over his lack of success, and he was pretty mellow when the boat pulled out. Carmody, with about a dozen quarts under his belt, dug Feeney up as soon as he got aboard, and the two walked up and down the main deck, arm in arm, Carmody keeping up his merciless stringing of his friend. Then Carmody heard the clatter of the chips in a $10 limit game of stud that had already started in the card-room, and suggested a two-handed game of stud to Feeney, with some accommodating non-player to deal the cards. Feeney was agreeable, and Carmody, seeing that I wasn't mixing up with the game in the card-room, asked me if I wouldn't dish 'em out for an hour or so of stud between himself and Feeney. It was to be $100 limit and $10 ante. The two men didn't get up to the $100 limit at all until after they had played for half an hour, and Carmody was $600 or $700 winner. Then Feeney found himself with kings up on tens in front of him and a card that he either liked or elected to bluff on in the hole, while Carmody had three aces face up and a card in the hole that he appeared to think a heap of, judging from the way he bet.
"'These kings of mine,' said Feeney, with the transparent air of a man making a win-out bluff, 'may not look very pretty alongside those three bullets of yours, Carmody, but they suit me, at that. You can have a peep at the blind for $100.'
"'I wouldn't think of paying so little money for the privilege of gazing at such a good card as you think you've got, Tim,' said Carmody. 'Now, having already got you beat on the show-up, I guess I can afford to charge you another $100 for a glimpse of the other one-spot that I've got in the pit.'
"This kind of talk went on for ten minutes, the two men raising each other back at $100 a clip until there was $3800 in the pot. Feeney talked and acted like a bluffer all the time, but nevertheless Carmody began to suspect that, after all, Tim might have something in the hole to beat him. So when Carmody called Feeney's last $100 raise the latter knew that his friend with the contracts in his pocket didn't have any four aces, and he just scooped in the pot before he showed up what he had in the hole. It was the third king, completing a nice full hand, that Feeney had in the hole, and the money was his. Carmody turned up a deuce, that he had tried to make the bluff was another ace, and looked properly crestfallen.
"'For a Mulligan that knows so little about business as you, Tim,' said Carmody, 'you've got a mighty crafty way about you of making it appear that you're bluffing. We'll try it again, and from now on I'll know that when you look and talk like you're bluffing you've got the hand.'
"Both men had been ringing up the steward's boy a good deal, during the progress of the game, and they were not, therefore, any more sober than was necessary. On the very next hand Feeney took a big hunk out of his rival. He had three deuces face up and Carmody had three jacks on top. Feeney began to bet $100 with so much natty confidence that Carmody decided that his compatriot was adopting new tactics in bluffing, and, quite naturally, with his three nice-looking jacks plainly in sight, he not only stood every raise but raised back the limit every time.
"'I figure it this way,' said Carmody, abstractedly to himself, when there was nigh onto $4000 in chips in the center of the baize. 'This Harp from Connemara across the table can't turn two of these tricks one right after the other. The percentage of the game is against such a thing as that. And he's just perky and sassy because he thinks I'm on to his first exhibited system of bluffing. Tim, another $100, if you want to feast your Mulligan blue eyes on this other knave of mine in the hole.'
"'And $100,' said Feeney, with all the confidence in life.