“Art, gentlemen, is a fine thing for the human race,” said he. “You have just saw an elegant exhibition of art, and who is there in this crowd that don’t feel a better man for what he saw?”
He looked around, as if inviting a challenge. None came. He resumed:
“Art in all its branches is a elegant fine thing, 50 gentlemen. It raises a man up, and it elevates him, and it makes him feel like a millionaire. If I only had a dime, as the man said, I’d spend it for a box of cigareets just to git the chromo-card. That’s what I think of art, gentlemen, and that’s how crazy I am over it.
“Now, if anybody here wants to bet me I ain’t got two eyes, I ain’t a goin’ to take him up, for I know I ain’t, gentlemen, and I’ve knowed it for thirty years. But if anybody wants to bet me I can’t throw twenty-seven––”
This was the one-eyed man’s game. He stood inside the curve of a crescent-shaped table, which struck him almost under the arms, his back to the wall of the tent. Players could surround him, almost; still, nobody could get behind him. In that direction there always was a way out. He stood there offering odds of five to one to anybody who wanted to bet him that he couldn’t himself, with his own hand and his own dice, throw twenty-seven. Any other number coming out of the box, the one-eyed man lost.
Examine the dice, gents; examine the box. If any gent had any doubts at all about the dice being straight, all he had to do was to examine them. There they lay, gents, honestly and openly on the table before the one-eyed man, his bony hand hovering over them caressingly.
Gents examined them freely. Nearly every player who put money down–secure in that egotistical valuation of one’s own shrewdness which is the sure-thing-man’s 51 bank and goldmine and mint–rolled the dice, weighed them, eyed them sharply. Then they bet against the one-eyed man–and lost.
That is, they lost if he wanted them to lose. There were victims who looked promising for a fat sacrifice who had to be tolled and primed and led on gently up to the block. At the right time the one-eyed man trimmed them, and he trimmed them down to the short bones.
His little boost for art finished–for the living pictures were art in which he had a proprietary interest, and he could afford to talk for it once in a while–the one-eyed man cast his glance over his table and saw the small bets. By some singular fortune all of the bettors won. They pocketed their winnings with grins as they pushed out among the gathering crowd.
Men began to pack thickly around the gambler’s crescent table, craning over shoulders to see what was going on. He was making a great Wild-West show of money, with a large revolver lying beside it at his elbow. Seeing that the young man who had carried June Reed off to the dance so intrepidly had made his way forward and was betting on the game, Dr. Slavens pushed up to the table and stood near.