"Quite a while," was the vague reply.
"A year?"
"Maybe longer. I dunno."
"Funny it never got round."
"It was a private wheel. Only for his friends. Nothin' public about it."
"Who used to play it besides you?" persisted Racey, hanging to his subject like a bull-pup to a tramp's trousers.
Mr. Dale wrinkled his forehead. "Besides me? Lessee now. They were Doc
Coffin, Nebraska Jones, Honey Hoke, and Punch-the-breeze Thompson."
"Nobody else?"
"Aw, Galloway and Norton and that bunch," Mr. Dale said, shamefacedly.
Racey nodded his head slowly. A crooked wheel. Of course it was crooked. Why not? That Dale, Galloway, Norton, and a few other gentlemen of the neighbourhood were under their wives' thumbs to such a degree that they did not dare to gamble openly was a matter of common knowledge. What more natural than that someone should provide them with a private gambling place? With such cappers as Nebraska and his gang, losers would not feel equal to making much of an outcry. It must be a paying occupation for McFluke, Nebraska, or whoever was at the bottom of the business.