The process was absorbing to him. His eyes popped out, the whites showing in a wide ring. His breathing was quick and husky as he shook the dice, and he muttered prayers and imprecations and incantations. Sometimes he threw the dice with one hand, sometimes with the other; he used certain luck charms, changing them from one pocket to the other, practising and experimenting with every sort of “conjure,” for he expected those little white cubes with the black spots to bring him the money with which to make a loud noise in Tickfall colored society.
Popsy roused himself from his dreamy vacuity and felt in his pocket for his tobacco-pouch. He would take a little smoke before dinner. He found the tobacco-pouch, also something else.
He brought forth a green-plush box and looked at it curiously. He opened it with hands which shook from senile palsy and examined its contents. It was a rabbit-foot surmounted with a silver cap on one end. He wondered where he had acquired the thing.
“Come here, Shinny!” he called. “Look whut I done found on myse’f.”
Shin Bone crossed the room, gazed at the treasure for a moment, and gave a surprised grunt.
“Whar did you git dis rabbit-foot?” he inquired suspiciously.
“I dunno, Shinny,” the old man replied in a complaining voice. “Whut is it fur?”
“Lots of folks has rabbit-foots,” Shin said. “I don’t b’lieve in ’em. I got four, an’ dey don’t fotch me no luck. Whar did you git dis’n?”
“I dunno.”
“Whar you been at to-day?” Shin asked.