The expert quickly picked up two shells. But the pea was under one of them.
“You win,” said Aaron instantly, and instantly caught up all three shells and shuffled them. One hundred and fifty dollars to the expert, though he had really lost! “See what that means?” he whispered to Bellyful. “He paid me not to expose him.”
“H’m,” replied Bellyful.
“Watch me again,” urged the expert.
Indeed, Bellyful did. Scientific doubt was over; the full sun had risen.
Once more the shuffled shells came to rest, enticing bets, when violent voices arose off to the left. Aaron quite—oh, quite!—forgot, and looked away to see what the noise was. The freighter quickly lifted a shell. The pea was there. He clapped the shell down.
“Put your hand on that, young man,” he commanded. “She’s there,” he shouted to Aaron, whose eye had now come back. The disturbance had been some brief trouble between British Isles and a man near him; it was quieted. The freighter bet the rest of his money—that large bun. The expert, with his hand on the shell, bet all his gold—it made several stacks.
“Take you,” said Aaron.
The pea wasn’t beneath the shell!