“System—hell! I've talked with every gambler in town, an' the last one is agreed they ain't no such thing as system.”
“Yet I'm showing them one all the time.”
“Look here, Smoke.” Shorty paused over the candle, in the act of blowing it out. “I'm real irritated. Maybe you think this is a candle. It ain't. No, sir! An' this ain't me neither. I'm out on trail somewheres, in my blankets, lyin' flat on my back with my mouth open, an' dreamin' all this. That ain't you talkin', any more than this candle is a candle.”
“It's funny, how I happen to be dreaming along with you then,” Smoke persisted.
“No, it ain't. You're part of my dream, that's all. I've hearn many a man talk in my dreams. I want to tell you one thing, Smoke. I'm gettin' mangy an' mad. If this here dream keeps up much more I'm goin' to bite my veins an' howl.”
On the sixth night of play at the Elkhorn, the limit was reduced to five dollars.
“It's all right,” Smoke assured the game-keeper. “I want thirty-five hundred to-night, as usual, and you only compel me to play longer. I've got to pick twice as many winners, that's all.”
“Why don't you buck somebody else's table?” the keeper demanded wrathfully.
“Because I like this one.” Smoke glanced over to the roaring stove only a few feet away. “Besides, there are no draughts here, and it is warm and comfortable.”
On the ninth night, when Shorty had carried the dust home, he had a fit. “I quit, Smoke, I quit,” he began. “I know when I got enough. I ain't dreamin'. I'm wide awake. A system can't be, but you got one just the same. There's nothin' in the rule o' three. The almanac's clean out. The world's gone smash. There's nothin' regular an' uniform no more. The multiplication table's gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven, and two-times-six is eight hundred an' forty-six—an'—an' a half. Anything is everything, an' nothing's all, an' twice all is cold-cream, milk-shakes, an' calico horses. You've got a system. Figgers beat the figgerin'. What ain't is, an' what isn't has to be. The sun rises in the west, the moon's a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, scurvy's the blessin' of God, him that dies kicks again, rocks floats, water's gas, I ain't me, you're somebody else, an' mebbe we're twins if we ain't hashed-brown potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up! Somebody! Oh! Wake me up!”