Collinson frowned, continuing to stare at the marked dollar. “I guess not, but really I should like to know.”
“I would, too,” Smithie said. “I been thinkin’ about it. Might ’a’ been somebody in Seattle or somebody in Ipswich, Mass., or New Orleans or St. Paul. How you goin’ to tell? It’s funny how some people like to believe luck depends on some little thing like that.”
“Yes, it is,” Collinson assented, still brooding over the coin.
The philosophic Smithie extended his arm across the table collecting the cards to deal them, for the “hand” was finished. “Yes, sir, it’s funny,” he repeated. “Nobody knows exactly what luck is, but the way I guess it out, it lays in a man’s believin’ he’s in luck, and some little object like this makes him kind of concentrate his mind on thinkin’ he’s goin’ to be lucky, because of course you often know you’re goin’ to win, and then you do win. You don’t win when you want to win, or when you need to; you win when you believe you’ll win. I don’t know who it was that said, ‘Money’s the root of all evil’; but I guess he didn’t have too much sense! I suppose if some man killed some other man for a dollar, the poor fish that said that would let the man out and send the dollar to the chair——”
But here this garrulous and discursive guest was interrupted by immoderate protests from several of his colleagues. “Cut it out!” “My Lord!” “Do something!” “Smithie! Are you ever goin’ to deal?”
“I’m goin’ to shuffle first,” he responded, suiting the action to the word, though with deliberation, and at the same time continuing his discourse. “It’s a mighty interesting thing, a piece o’ money. You take this dollar, now: Who’s it belonged to? Where’s it been? What different kind o’ funny things has it been spent for sometimes? What funny kind of secrets do you suppose it could ’a’ heard if it had ears? Good people have had it and bad people have had it: why, a dollar could tell more about the human race—why, it could tell all about it!”
“I guess it couldn’t tell all about the way you’re dealin’ those cards,” said the man with the green shade. “You’re mixin’ things all up.”
“I’ll straighten ’em all out then,” said Smithie cheerfully. “They say, ‘Money talks.’ Golly! If it could talk, what couldn’t it tell? Nobody’d be safe. I got this dollar now, but who’s it goin’ to belong to next, and what’ll he do with it? And then after that! Why, for years and years and years, it’ll go on from one pocket to another, in a millionaire’s house one day, in some burglar’s flat the next, maybe, and in one person’s hand money’ll do good, likely, and in another’s it’ll do harm. We all want money; but some say it’s a bad thing, like that dummy I was talkin’ about. Lordy! Goodness or badness, I’ll take all anybody——”
He was interrupted again, and with increased vehemence. Collinson, who sat next to him, complied with the demand to “ante up,” then placed the dollar near his little cylinder of chips, and looked at his cards. They proved unencouraging, and he turned to his neighbour. “I’d sort of like to have that marked dollar, Smithie,” he said. “I’ll give you a paper dollar, Smithie,” he said. “I’ll give you a paper dollar and a nickel for it.”
But Smithie laughed, shook his head and slid the coin over toward his own chips. “No, sir. I’m goin’ to keep it—awhile, anyway.”