The Spider exercised his privilege of grabbing the dice before they had stopped rolling. As far as the Wildcat's naked eye could see, the same dice were rolled back at him, but as a matter of fact the Wildcat's dice nestled close against the epidermis of the Spindlin' Spider's right palm.
The dice that had been returned were festooned with misfortune. The Wildcat had overlooked a bet. He curried the gallopers to blood heat in his magenta palm. "Houn' dog headed home wid rabbit hair in yo' teeth! Turkey dice, gobble dat coin. Bam!—How come!"
An ace-deuce bloomed in the garden of chance.
The Spindlin' Spider faced the Wildcat. "Loses nuthin' but yo' money, boy. Roll 'em."
The Wildcat clipped his roll for another hundred. "Shoots a hund'ed. Shower down, fiel' han's! Dice hammer, drive de gold spike! Ten-o-see! An' I reads ace-dooce. How come I miss?"
The Spider repeated his comforting reminder: "Loses nuthin' but yo' money, brother. Roll 'em."
The Wildcat pared another stratum from his dwindling roll. "Shoots a hund'ed dollars. Grass cuttehs, reap dem greens! Fade me an' die poor. Bam! An' I reads—ace-dooce! Doggone, how come I set fire to de Chris'mus tree?"
"Ca'm yo'se'f." The Spindlin' brother dished out a little advice as he picked up his winnings. "What fo' you talk so much? You must think dis is a peace conflooence. Roll 'em."
Starting in the sunshine of Lady Luck's smile, the Wildcat cleared the hurdles of financial ruin and rambled into the stretch soggy with a cloudburst of hard luck. He staked his last pair of ten dollar bills on a throw whose momentum carried him to the cleaners.
The Spindlin' Spider urged him to lay further contributions on the altar of chance.