The choice of a main was quite optional: many preferred 7 in because they might make a coup at once by throwing that number, or by throwing 11, which is a "nick" to 7, but to 7 only. Many shrewd players, however, preferred some other main, with the view of having a more favourable chance to depend upon of winning both stake and odds. For example, let us reverse the case given above, and suppose the caster called 5 and threw 7; he would then have 7 as his chance to win odds of 3 to 2 in his favour. Such was the game of English hazard, at which large fortunes were lost. Cheating could only be effected by the use of loaded dice, which were called "dispatches," or by high and low dice having only certain numbers. Sharpers often carried these and also "cramped" boxes to make the dice fall in a particular way. So popular were dice with the gamesters of old that one of them left an injunction in his will that his bones should be made into dice and his skin into coverings for dice-boxes. The round table on which English hazard was played had a deeply bevelled edge, intended to prevent the dice from landing on the floor, which rendered a throw void. If either of the dice, after having left the box, should strike any object on the table, such as a man's elbow or stick, except money, it was also no throw. Every player had the right of "calling dice," even when the dice were being thrown. This, of course, nullified the throw, another set being handed to the caster by the groom-porter. Many a lucky coup was destroyed by some captious player having exercised this privilege--with most irritating effects to the disappointed caster on finding that he had "nicked" his main. When one of the dice remained in the box after the other had been landed, the caster might either throw it quickly, or gently coax it from the box. If one die landed on the top of another, it was removed by the groom-porter and declared a throw. Dice were known as the "ivories." At a Westminster election, the keeper of a notorious gambling-house in St. Anne's parish, on being about to give his vote, was asked in the usual way what his trade was; when after a little hesitation, he replied, "I am an ivory turner." Many curious incidents occurred at hazard. On one occasion when two gamesters had deposited a very large stake to be won by him who threw the lowest throw with the dice, one of them, who had thrown three aces, thought himself secure of success. "Wait for my throw," cried his opponent. He threw, and with such dexterity, that by lodging one of the dice on the other, he showed only one ace on the uppermost of them. He was allowed by the company to have won the stakes.