"Sure!"
"And worth while, John?"
He laughed. "Believe me! It's the worthwhilest thing under the sun to sit in the Game, with a sport's interest in the hands dealt out, taking yours as it comes to you, bluffing all you can when you've got to, playing your cards for all they're worth when it's your turn. No reneging. No squealing when you lose. No boasting how you did it when you win. There's nothing in the whole universe so intensely and immensely worth while as being you and alive, with yourself the whole kitty and the sky your limit! It's one great old Game, and I'm for thanking the Big Dealer that I'da whack at playing it." And his eyes snapped and his lean brown face flushed.
"And you are really willing to—to stake yourself now, my son?"
"Lord, parson, you ought to know! And you a dead ringer for the real thing in a classy sport yourself!"
"My dear son—!"
My dear son waved his fine hand, and chuckled in his red beard.
"Would you back down if this was your call? Why, you're the sort that would tackle the biggest noise in the ring, even if you knew you'd be dragged out on your pantry in the first half of the first round, if you thought you'd got holy orders to do it! If you saw me getting jellyfish of the spine now, you'd curl up and die—wouldn't you, honest Injun?" His eyes crinkled and he grinned so infectiously that my fears subsided. I had an almost superstitious certainty that nothing really evil could happen to a man who could grin like that. Fate and fortune are perfectly powerless before the human being who can meet them with the sword of a smile.
"Well," I admitted cautiously, "jellyfish of the spine must be an unlovely ailment; not that I ever heard of it before."
"You're willing for me to go, then?"