"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin' himself for a winner, didn't you?"
"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise—"lives on his bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."
But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course, there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a walk.
"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"
At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin' folks a treat.
"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."
Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.
"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who——"
"I do, if you don't," says I.
Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they? They're so tickled they almost squeals.