"Hello, Joe!" he said affably to the man in charge, and passed on into the back room. As the door of this was opened the sharp click of ivory chips came through, and Wallingford heard one strident voice say, "I'll raise you ten." A brisk and gimlet-eyed young man came out a moment later with a fifty-dollar bill, for which he got change.
"How you making it, Tommy?" he asked perfunctorily of one of the men who were shaking dice.
"Rotten!" said the dice shaker. "I've won ten two-for-a-quarter cigars that have cost me four dollars."
"I'd blow the game," advised the young man with a bantering laugh. "Shoot somebody for the four and quit double or even."
"I'll do it," said the man addressed as Tommy. "Fade me, Joe?"
"Any amount, old man," said the proprietor nonchalantly, and taking four dollars from the cash register he left the drawer open. "How do you want to be skinned?"
"First-flop poker dice," said Tommy, picking up the leather box which Joe had slammed upon the board, and rattling the five dice in it.
One turn apiece and the proprietor picked up the money. Tommy silently threw a five on the case.
"You other fellows want in on this?" he asked.
J. Rufus suddenly felt that mysterious thing called a "hunch" prickling in his wrist.