He shuffled the shells straight at the freighter as if he were making love to him
elbow. This time the freighter felt it. He backed away from the neighbor with glaring indignation.
“Ho, no, young man!” he exclaimed loudly. “Keep your tips for greenhorns that ain’t on to this game.” He flayed twenty dollars off his bun. “She’s under there,” he declared, tapping his own shell again.
“Take you,” said Aaron. He lifted the shell. No pea was there!
“Aw!” commented British Isles sympathetically. “Come again, sir. You’ll be apt to swat him next time.”
But the unhappy freighter stood still in an ox-like bewilderment, turning large, rueful eyes now upon the shuffling shells and now upon the neighbor, whose lip curled with a cold, wise smile.
Scientific doubt was rosy everywhere; full knowledge might break at any minute. Bellyful knew now that the freighter was too innocent to be true, that he was in it with Aaron, in it with British Isles, that the three of them had a united eye upon some fat quarry, and were playing a game to bag him. Who was it? Bellyful looked at every man.
“Are you on yet?” whispered the neighbor, edging up. While the bets and shuffling went on, he whispered wisdom behind his hand to Bellyful. Aaron won steadily in a small way till a lull in business came; this he cured by losing sixty well-timed dollars to British Isles. Small business picked up at once. Some people are fools all the time, all people are fools some of the time—but when was the fat quarry coming? Every little while the neighbor dropped more expert wisdom into Bellyful’s ear. “A bad thing,” he whispered, “ever to take your eye off the shells. While that hayseed freighter was looking at the sky, just now, the shells had been changed round. Hard to prove it, too, even if you thought you saw it. Best way of all was, keep your hand on the shell you bet on. Don’t let him move it and talk, for even if the pea was under it he could get it away. He’d never let you win if he didn’t want you to. Keep your hand on your shell.”