"All right," Nick said warmly. "So maybe I'd like the whole stink to cool down a little, huh?" "Not with my dough in it, Nick!" I told him, being pretty free with something I didn't have much of any more. "You'll deal me in tonight or I'll find another banker!" A gink with a long, scrawny neck put down his highball and rose from the table. "Gosh, fellows," he said. "I'm sort of a fifth wheel around here, I guess. Here, neighbor," he insisted. "Take my place." He was all grins and teeth and bobbed his head around with a rural awkwardness. "You don't have to do that, Snead," Nick started to say. "Just as soon kibitz," he insisted, drawing up a chair behind me as I took his seat. "You don't mind, neighbor?" he asked anxiously. I shook my head and yanked out my much-depleted wallet to pay for chips. It took all that the Lodge hadn't. Four hands were enough. On the first, at stud, I had aces back to back and picked up a pair of sevens on the next two cards. Two pair, aces high, will win about ninety-nine out of a hundred stud hands. I chewed down on the panetella in my teeth and bet them like I had them. The tilt of my cigar showed just a little too much confidence as a way to convince some of the gamblers that I was bluffing. It must have been a good act, for three of them stayed with me all the way. None of them had much showing, and regardless of what their hole cards were, by the time we had our fifth cards, I had them all beaten. It was raise against raise, but somebody finally called, and I turned over my ace in the hole. "Aces and sevens, gamblers," I grinned, reaching for the pot. "I see the sevens," a fat-faced man across the table said around his cigar. "But what's this jazz about aces?" So help me Hannah, my hole card was a two! I tried to cover it up. "You'll have to admit I bet them like aces," I said. Somebody laughed, but not very hard. I paid mighty close attention to what I was dealt the next hand, and turned down a drink to make sure I was cold sober. Unfortunately, I got all screwed up over what one of the _other_ gamblers had. It had been a bunch of spinach when I'd been betting my pair against it, but it was one good-looking straight when he flipped the card in the hole. The third hand I dropped out before the fourth card. After a gambler raked in that pot, my kibitzer asked me: "How much do you have to have on the first three cards to stay in the pot?" "Any pair would convince me," I said. "Why?" "What was the matter with the kings you had showing?" he asked. They were still on the table in front of me, king of hearts and king of clubs.