“Ha, suh!” said Wingo to Hewley. “My pot again, I declah.” The chips had been crossing the table his way, and he was now loser but six hundred dollars.
“Ye ain’t goin’ to whip Mizzooruh all night an’ all day, ez a rule,” observed Pete Cawthon, Councillor from Lost Leg.
“’Tis a long road that has no turnin’, Gove’nuh,” said F. Jackson Gilet, more urbanely. He had been in public life in Missouri, and was now President of the Council in Idaho. He, too, had arrived on a mule, but could at will summon a rhetoric dating from Cicero, and preserved by many luxuriant orators until after the middle of the present century.
“True,” said the Governor, politely. “But here sits the long-suffering bank, whichever way the road turns. I’m sleepy.”
“You sacrifice yo’self in the good cause,” replied Gilet, pointing to the poker game. “Oneasy lies the head that wahs an office, suh.” And Gilet bowed over his compliment.
The Governor thought so indeed. He looked at the Treasurer’s strong-box, where lay the appropriation lately made by Congress to pay the Idaho Legislature for its services; and he looked at the Treasurer, in whose pocket lay the key of the strong-box. He was accountable to the Treasury at Washington for all money disbursed for Territorial expenses.
“Eleven twenty,” said Wingo, “and only two hands mo’ to play.”
The Governor slid out his own watch.
“I’ll scahsely recoup,” said Wingo.
They dealt and played the hand, and the Governor strolled to the window.