“If it means a chance for Beany,” says I, “I’ll bid good-by to five twenties and let you do your worst.”
“A wager of that sort would tempt Craige, if anything would,” says Pinckney. “We’ll try it on, anyway.”
Whether it was the bluff Pinckney threw, or the insultin’ way he suggests that the Doc don’t dare take him up, I can’t say. All I know is that inside of half an hour we was in Jason Craige’s private billiard room, him and Pinckney peeled down to their shirts, and at it.
As a rule I could go to sleep watchin’ the best three-ball carom game ever played; but durin’ this contest I holds the marker’s stick and never misses a move. First off Pinckney plays about as skillful as a trained pig practicin’ on the piano; but after four or five minutes of punk exhibition he takes a brace and surprises himself.
No need going into details. Pinckney wins out, and the Doc slams his cue into the rack with some remark about producin’ the charity patient to-morrow. Did I? I routs Renée out at daylight next mornin’, has him make a fifty-mile run at Vanderbilt Cup speed, and we has Beany in the eye expert’s lib’ry before he comes down for breakfast.
It takes Dr. Craige less’n three minutes to discover that the hospital hand who told Beany he was bound to lose both lamps was a fat brained nut who’d be more useful drivin’ an ashcart. The Doc lays Beany out on a leather couch, uses a little cocaine in the right place, monkeys around a minute or so with some shiny hardware, and announces that after he’s laid up for twenty-four hours in a dark room, usin’ the wash reg’lar, he’ll be able to see as well as any of us.
It’s a fact, too; for Beany goes back on his old job next Monday mornin’.
“By Jove!” says Pinckney, after the trick is turned. “A miracle, Craige!”
“Miracle be blowed!” says the Doc. “You accomplished the miracle last night, Pinckney, when you ran thirty-two buttons on scratch hits.”
THE END