But it looked like Biggs was again sticking his neck out. I tried to stop him. I said, "Don't, Biggs! This game is in the bag for the Rocketeers. Don't be so rash!"
But only half the words had garbled through my larynx when Cap Hanson yelped exuberantly, "Done! Gentlemen, I call upon you to witness that wager!" And he rubbed his paws together like a raccoon eyeing a bowl of honey.
Twenty to nothing! That was the score then, and it was the score fifteen minutes later when, with but seven more minutes remaining in the annual fracas, Lancelot Biggs went stark, staring mad.
Now, Cap Hanson contributed to that madness. I must admit that his glee annoyed me. I can stand taking a licking as well as the next man, but I hate like hell to have someone rub it in. And that's what the skipper was doing. As the minutes ticked by, and the Rocketeers' margin became momentarily more insurmountable, he first taunted us Wranglers, then insulted us by offering ridiculous odds against our winning, and finally accused us all of lacking sportsmanship.
Biggs, standing carefully aloof from Diane in order not to rouse the skipper's latent wrath, had a strange pallor on his cheeks. Not so strange, maybe. It's hard to stand by and watch everything you possess slipping down the skids.
Cap didn't make things any easier for him. Every so often the Old Man would bend over, slap his thighs, and howl, "Anything more you'd like to bet, Mister Biggs? Whoops! I'm a space-bitten son of Jupiter if this ain't the most fun I ever had!"
And then Lancelot Biggs jolted out of his curious stupor. He said, "Yes, Captain—I do have something else to bet!"
Even Hanson was staggered by that one. "Huh?" was his snappiest come-back.
"If—" There was a dreamy look in Biggs' eyes. "If you'd be kind enough to step into the corridor with me. You and Sparks, please?"