“Now, look-a here!” said he, addressing them generally. “I’ve traveled this wide world over ever since I was a tender child, as the man said, and I never seen a chance like this to skin a feller slide by without more’n one lone man havin’ sense enough and nerve enough to git in on it.
“Do I see any more of your money, gents, before I roll the dice? Do I see any more of your money of the ream and dominion of Uncle Sam, with the eagle a spreadin’ his legs, with his toes full of arrers, and his mouth wide open a hollerin’ de-fiance and destruction ag’in’ his innimies on land and sea, wheresomever they may be, as the feller said?
“Do I see any more of your money, gents? Do I git sight of any more? Lowest bet’s one dollar, gents, and you might as well git in on the finish and let the old man go up with a whoop. I’m game, gents; I go the limit. Do I see any more of your money? Do I see any more?”
He did. He saw considerably more than he had seen at one time since he opened the game in Comanche. He seemed greatly affected by the sight, shaking his head with solemnity and casting his eye around with reproach.
“That’s right! That’s right!” said he. “Sock it to a old feller when you’ve got him down! That’s the 55 way of this cold world. Well, all I ask of you, gents”–he paused in his request to shake the box again, holding it poised for the throw–“is this: When you clean me I ask you to stake me, between you, to twenty-seven dollars. Twenty-seven’s my lucky number; I was borned on the 27th day of Jannewarry, and I always bet on twenty-seven.”
He poured the dice upon the table, reaching for his pile of bills and gold as if to cash in on the winnings as he set the box down, even while the dice were rolling and settling. But at that point the one-eyed man stayed his hand, bending over the dice as if he could not believe his eye.
“Well, bust me!” said he, sighing as if honestly disappointed in the throw. “M’ luck’s turned! Dang me, fellers, if I didn’t win!”
Without enthusiasm, still shaking his head sadly, he drew the winnings over the table, sorting the bills, shuffling them into neat heaps, adding them to his enticing pile, which lay heaped upon a green cloth at his hand.
“I don’t know why I stick to this game, gents,” said he, “for it’s all ag’in’ me. I don’t win once in nine hundred times. This here’s more money than I’ve took in at any one time since I come to Comanche, and it’s more’n I ever expect to take in ag’in if I stay here forty-nine years.
“But it’s in m’ blood to bet on twenty-seven. I can’t help it, boys. It’ll be the ruination of me ag’in, like it’s ruined me many a time before; but I got to roll ’em! 56 I got to roll ’em! And if anybody wants to git in, let him put his money down!”