“But you would have chosen the same card, you said,” she prompted. “You saw how easy it was.”
“Easy if you know how,” Jim asserted. “Think to stake a leetle here? I’ve been keepin’ cases and luck’s breaking ag’in the bank to-night, by gosh. Made several turns, myself, already.”
“We’ll wait a minute till we get his system,” she answered.
“Are you watching, ladies and gentlemen?” bade the dealer, in that even tone. “You see the eight of clubs, the eight of spades, the queen of hearts. The queen is your card. My hand against your eyes, then. You are set? There you are. Pick the queen, some one of you. Put your money on the queen of hearts. You can turn the card yourself. What? Nobody? Don’t be pikers. Let us have a little sport. Stake a dollar. Why, you’d toss a dollar down your throat—you’d lay a dollar on a cockroach race—you’d bet that much on a yellow dog if you owned him, just to show 120 your spirit. And here I’m offering you a straight proposition.”
With a muttered “I’ll go you another turn, Mister,” Jim stepped closer and planked down a dollar. The dealer cast a look up at him as with pleased surprise.
“You, sir? Very good. You have spirit. Money talks. Here is my dollar. Now, to prove to these other people what a good guesser you are, which is the queen?”
“Here,” Jim said confidently; and sure enough he faced up the queen of hearts.
“The money’s yours. You never earned a dollar quicker, I’ll wager, friend,” the dealer acknowledged, imperturbable—for he evidently was one who never evinced the least emotion, whether he won or lost. “Very good. Now——”
From behind him a man—a newcomer to the spot, who looked like any respectable Eastern merchant, being well dressed and grave of face—touched him upon the shoulder. He turned ear; while he inclined farther they whispered together, and I witnessed an arm steal swiftly forward at my side, and a thumb and finger slightly bend up the extreme corner of the queen. The hand and arm vanished; when the dealer fronted us again the queen was apparently just as before. Only we who had seen would have marked the bent corner.
The act had been so clever and so audacious that I 121 fairly held my breath. But the gambler resumed his flow of talk, while he fingered the cards as if totally unaware that they had been tampered with.