Flem obeyed, displaying an ace, a deuce and a six. "And nine more makes twenty-one in all!" chortled Fox triumphantly. As though dazed, the barkeeper shook his head. "Well, Foxey, ole pardner, you shore got me that time," he confessed begrudgingly. "Whut'll it be, gents? Here, I reckin the cigars is on me too, after that." From a glass-topped case at the end of the bar alongside Gash Tuttle he produced a full box and extended it hospitably. "The smokes is on the house--dip in, gents. Dip in. Try an Old Hickory; them's pure Tampas--ten cents straight." He drew the beers--large ones for the two, a small one for himself--and raised his own glass to them. "Here's to you and t'ward you!" he said. "Ef I hadn't a-met you I wouldn't a-knowed you," shot back Gash Tuttle with the lightning spontaneity of one whose wit moves in boltlike brilliancy; and at that they both laughed loudly and, as though dazzled by his flashes, bestowed on him the look that is ever the sweetest tribute to the jester's talents. The toast to a better acquaintance being quaffed and lights exchanged, the still nonplussed Flem addressed the winners: "Well, boys, I thought I knowed all there was to know about dice--poker dice and crap dice too; but live and learn, as the feller says. Say, Fox, put me on to that trick--it'll come in handy. I'll ketch Joe on it when he gits back," and he nodded toward the lunch counter. "You don't need to know no more'n you know about it already," expounded Fox. "It's bound to come out that way." "How is it bound to come out that way?" "Why, Flem, it's jest plain arithmetic; mathematics--that's all. Always the tops and bottoms of ary three dice come to twenty-one. Here, gimme that cup and I'll prove it." In rapid succession, three times, he shook the cubes out. It was indeed as the wizard had said. No matter what the sequence, the complete tally was ever the same--twenty-one. "Now who'd 'a' thought it!" exclaimed Flem delightedly. "Say, a feller could win a pile of dough workin' that trick! I'd 'a' fell fur some real money myself." "That's why I made it fur the drinks," said the magnanimous Fox. "I wouldn't put it over on a friend--not for no amount; because it's a sure-thing proposition. It jest naturally can't lose! I wouldn't 'a' tried to skin this pardner here with it even if I'd 'a' thought I could." And once more his hand fell in flattering camaraderie on a fawn-coloured shoulder. "I know a regular guy that's likewise a wise guy as soon as I see him. But with rank strangers it'd be plumb different. The way I look at it, a stranger's money is anybody's money----" He broke off abruptly as the doorhinges creaked. A tall, thin individual wearing a cap, a squint and a cigarette, all on the same side of his head, had entered. He stopped at the lunch counter as though desirous of purchasing food. "Sh-h! Listen!" Fox's subdued tones reached only the barkeeper and Mr. Tuttle. "That feller looks like a mark to me. D'ye know him, Flem?"