“My expenses, eh?” he boisterously replied, turning to wink at Belle, then at the humpback cuekeeper, who had taken his seat at the end of the table.
“Sure thing, sir, if you get ’em down right,” laughed Godard, a bit nervously.
“Waal, my expenses will be suthing,” roared Nick, “if we blow in the stuff as we did at the Waldorf. Gee whiz! but it costs suthing to eat and liquor up in that ’ere tavern. Eh, Archie?”
“Right you are, old man,” nodded Chick, who was seated near-by.
“Are you in with my play, lass, or with Godard’s?” cried Nick, turning to Belle with a great display of joviality.
“I’m always in with the winner,” replied the girl, with a ringing laugh.
“Oh, ho, that’s it, eh? Cunning as a kitten, aren’t you?”
“I’m always looking out for my own interest,” grinned Belle, patting Nick’s cheek from behind his chair.
“Good for you, gal,” cried Nick approvingly. “Waal, Mr. Godard, across the crick thar, give me a stack o’ chips. I’ll show you how we play the bank on the t’other side o’ the Mississip. I dropped seven thousand in hides in Chicago, on my way here, the which I’m out to get back. Ha, ha! in with the winner, lass, are you?”
While boisterously voicing the above, Nick drew from the side pocket of his coat a huge roll of bank-notes, from which he quickly stripped off two of five hundred dollars each, and carelessly tossed them across the layout.