On the sixth night of play at the Elkhorn, the limit was reduced to
five dollars.
"It's all right," Smoke assured the game-keeper. "I want thirty-five
hundred to-night, as usual, and you only compel me to play longer.
I've got to pick twice as many winners, that's all."
"Why don't you buck somebody else's table?" the keeper demanded
wrathfully.
"Because I like this one." Smoke glanced over to the roaring stove only
a few feet away. "Besides, there are no draughts here, and it is warm
and comfortable."
On the ninth night, when Shorty had carried the dust home, he had a fit.
"I quit, Smoke, I quit," he began. "I know when I got enough. I ain't
dreamin'. I'm wide awake. A system can't be, but you got one just the
same. There's nothin' in the rule o' three. The almanac's clean out.
The world's gone smash. There's nothin' regular an' uniform no more.
The multiplication table's gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven,
and two-times-six is eight hundred an' forty-six--an'--an' a half.
Anything is everything, an' nothing's all, an' twice all is cold cream,
milk-shakes, an' calico horses. You've got a system. Figgers beat the
figgerin'. What ain't is, an' what isn't has to be. The sun rises in
the west, the moon's a paystreak, the stars is canned corn-beef,
scurvy's the blessin' of God, him that dies kicks again, rocks floats,
water's gas, I ain't me, you're somebody else, an' mebbe we're twins if
we ain't hashed-brown potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up!
Somebody! Oh! Wake me up!"