“THIS SHELL GAME IS EASY ENOUGH WHEN YOU KNOW HOW”
“If you wasn’t goin’ into the detective business,” said Mr. Critz, “you’d be just the feller for me. You look sort of honest and not as if you was too bright, and that counts a lot. Even in this here simple little shell game I got to have a podner. I got to have a podner I can trust, so I can let him look like he was winnin’ money off of me. You see,” he explained, moving to the washstand, “this shell game is easy enough when you know how. I put three shells down like this, on a stand, and I put the little rubber pea on the stand, and then I take up the three shells like this, two in one hand and one in the other, and I wave ’em around over the pea, and maybe push the pea around a little, and I say, ‘Come on! Come on! The hand is quicker than the eye!’ And all of a suddent I put the shells down, and you think the pea is under one of them, like that—”
“I don’t think the pea is under one of ’em,” said Mr. Gubb. “I seen it roll onto the floor.”
“It did roll onto the floor that time,” said Mr. Critz apologetically. “It most generally does for me, yet. I ain’t got it down to perfection yet. This is the way it ought to work—oh, pshaw! there she goes onto the floor again! Went under the bed that time. Here she is! Now, the way she ought to work is—there she goes again!”
“You got to practice that game a lot before you try it onto folks in public, Mr. Critz,” said Mr. Gubb seriously.
“Don’t I know that?” said Mr. Critz rather impatiently. “Same as you’ve got to practice snoopin’, Mr. Gubb. Maybe you thought I didn’t know you was snoopin’ after me wherever I went last night.”
“Did you?” asked Mr. Gubb, with surprise plainly written on his face.
“I seen you every moment from nine p.m. till eleven!” said Mr. Critz. “I didn’t like it, neither.”
“I didn’t think to annoy you,” apologized Mr. Gubb. “I was practicin’ Lesson Four. You wasn’t supposed to know I was there at all.”