"That's neither here nor there," he says. "Luck's got to turn. The wheel ain't ever been made that could stand that strain much longer."
And here Luella Stultz comes up and says Mrs. Wales wants to know how much she could bet all at once if she happened to want to. I could just see Cora having a sharp pain in the heart like a knife thrust when she thought what she would of win by betting ten dollars instead of one. Cousin Egbert answers Luella quite viciously.
"Tell that dame the ceiling sets the limit now," says he; "but if that ain't lofty enough I'll have a skylight sawed into it for her."
Then he goes over to watch, himself, being all ruined up by these plungers. Leonard was saying: "Now don't be rash, Pettie!" And Pettie was telling him it was his negative mind that had kept her from betting five dollars every clip, and look what that would mean to their pile!
Cousin Egbert give 'em one look and says, right out loud, Leonard Wales is the biggest ham that was ever smoked, and he'd like to meet him, man to man, outside; then he goes off muttering that he can be pushed so far, but in the excitement of the play no one pays the least attention to him. A little later I see him all alone out in the hall again. He was scrunched painfully up in a chair till he looked just like this here French metal statue called Lee Penser, which in our language means "The Thinker." I let him think, not having the heart to prong him again so quick.
And the game goes merrily on, with Sandy collecting steadily on his hunch and Cora Wales telling her husband the truth about himself every time one of these three numbers didn't win; she exposed some very distressing facts about his nature the time she put five apiece on the three numbers and the single-o come up. It was a mad life, that last hour, with a lot of other enraged ladies round the layout, some being mad because they hadn't had money to play the hunch with, and others because they hadn't had the nerve.
Then somebody found it was near midnight and the crowd begun to fall away. Cousin Egbert strolls by and says don't quit on his account—that they can stick there and play their hunch till the bad place freezes over, for all he cares; and he goes over to the bar and takes a drink all by himself, which in him is a sign of great mental disturbance.
Then, for about twenty minutes, I was chatting with the Mes-dames Ballard and Price about what a grand success our part had been, owing to Sandy acting the fool with Cousin Egbert's money, which the latter ain't wise to yet. When I next notice the game a halt has been called by Cora Wales. It seems the hunch has quit working. Neither of 'em has won a bet for twenty minutes and Cora is calling the game crooked.
"It looks very, very queer," says she, "that our numbers should so suddenly stop winning; very queer and suspicious indeed!" And she glared at Cousin Egbert with rage and distrust splitting fifty-fifty in her fevered eyes.
Cousin Egbert replied quickly, but he kind of sputtered and so couldn't have been arrested for it.