"Yes. It's just the same as your own, and just as good. The company's paper is always good."
Deacon cut the cards, won the deal, and gave them a thorough shuffle. But his luck was still against him, and he lost the game.
"Another game," he said. "We didn't say how many, and you can't quit with me a loser. I want action."
Grief shuffled and passed the cards for the cut.
"Let's play for a thousand," Deacon said, when he had lost the second game. And when the thousand had gone the way of the two five hundred bets he proposed to play for two thousand.
"That's progression," McMurtrey warned, and was rewarded by a glare from Deacon. But the manager was insistent. "You don't have to play progression, Grief, unless you're foolish."
"Who's playing this game?" Deacon flamed at his host; and then, to Grief: "I've lost two thousand to you. Will you play for two thousand?"
Grief nodded, the fourth game began, and Deacon won. The manifest unfairness of such betting was known to all of them. Though he had lost three games out of four, Deacon had lost no money. By the child's device of doubling his wager with each loss, he was bound, with the first game he won, no matter how long delayed, to be even again.
He now evinced an unspoken desire to stop, but Grief passed the deck to be cut.
"What?" Deacon cried. "You want more?"