"Is it somethin' I can settle?" he ast.
"Yes, sir," I says, "because we was bettin' on the rent you paid for this apartment. The Missus says seventy a month and I says fifty-five."
"I never decide against a lady," he says. "You better buy the stockin's before the others run so far that they can't find their way home."
"If I lose, I lose," says I. "But if you're stuck sixty-five or better, the Missus must of steered me wrong about the number o' rooms you got. I'll pay, though, because I don't never welsh on a bet. So this party's really costin' me two and a half instead o' two."
"Maybe you'll win the prize," says Mr. Garrett.
"They ain't much chance," I says. "I ain't played this game for a long w'ile."
"Why, your wife was just tellin' me you played last night," he says.
"I mean," says I, "that I didn't play for a long w'ile before last night; not for thirty-six years," I says.
Well, when everybody'd got through chokin' down the shot, they brought in some drowned toadstools, and then some little slices o' beef about the size of a checker, and seven Saratoga chips apiece, and half a dozen string beans. Those that was still able to set up under this load finished up on sliced tomatoes that was caught too young and a nickel's worth of ice-cream and an eyedropper full o' coffee.
"Before I forget it," says Mrs. Collins, w'ile we was staggerin' out o' the dinin'-room, "you're all comin' to my house next Tuesday night."