“Was that what you meant by confusing a penalty? Well, stranger, it doesn’t go here. We ain’t to be bought, even by a ton of tobacco.”
“I hadn’t thought of either buying or bribing you,” said Stranleigh, “therefore we will get back to our original subject, the difference between brain and muscle. I see here on the table a pack of cards in a deplorably greasy condition. If you were playing a game with an opponent who was beating you, would you shoot him?”
“Yes,” promptly replied Jim, “if I found he was cheating.”
“Whereupon his friends would lynch you.”
“A cheater hasn’t any friends.”
“Jim, I shouldn’t like to sit down to a game with you. You would shoot first, and think afterwards, while I, being unarmed, should be at a disadvantage. That, indeed, is just what you are doing now. If you succeed in holding me here you will spoil my game. What I propose to do is not to attack Ricketts with a gun, but to learn his style of play, and beat him at it. Any confounded fool can shoot off a gun; there’s no credit in that. It’s a coward’s trick.”
“You say we’ll spoil your game. You may bet your life we will. You daren’t tell us what it is.”
“Oh yes, I dare, because I have a trick that will quite delude you.”
“I know you’ll try to do that.”