Say, you'd thought a feller with talent like that would have made a name for himself, wouldn't you? Tryin' to be a sport was where Snick fell down, though. He had the blood, all right, but no head. Why when we used to play marbles for keeps, Snick would never know when to quit. He'd shoot away until he'd lost his last alley, and then he'd pry out that glass eye of his and chuck it in the ring for another go. Many a time Snick's gone home wearin' a striped chiny or a pink stony in place of the store eye, and then his old lady would chase around lookin' for the kid that had won it off'm him. There's such a thing as bein' too good a loser; but you could never make Snick see it. Well, I'd marked up five to the bad on my books, and then Swifty Joe and me had worked an hour with a couple of rockin' chair commodores from the New York Yacht Club, gettin' 'em in shape to answer Lipton's batch of spring challenges, when Pinckney blows in, towin' a tubby, red faced party in a frock coat and a silk lid. "Shorty," says he, "I want you to know Sir Hunter Twiggle. Sir Hunter, this is the Professor McCabe you've heard about." "If you heard it from Pinckney," says I, "don't believe more'n half of it." With that we swaps the grip, and he says he's glad to meet up with me. But say, he hadn't been in the shop two minutes 'fore I was next to the fact that he was another who'd had to mate up his lamps with a specimen from the glass counter. "They must be runnin' in pairs," thinks I. "This'd be a good time to draw to three of a kind." Course, I didn't mention it, but I couldn't keep from watchin' how awkward he handled his'n, compared to the smooth way Snick could do it. I guess Pinckney must have spotted me comin' the steady gaze, for pretty soon he gets me one side and whispers, "Don't appear to notice it." "All right," says I; "I'll look at his feet." "No, no," says Pinckney, "just pretend you haven't discovered it. He's very sensitive on the subject--thinks no one knows, and so on." "But it's as plain as a gold tooth," says I. "I know," says Pinckney; "but humour him. He's the right sort." Pinckney wa'n't far off, either. For a gent that acted as though he'd been born wearin' a high collar and a shiny hat, Sir Twiggle wasn't so worse. Barrin' the stiffenin', which didn't wear off at all, he was a decent kind of a haitch eater. Bein' dignified was something he couldn't help. You'd never guessed, to look at him, that he'd ever been mixed up in anything livelier'n layin' a church cornerstone, but it leaks out that he had been through all kinds of scraps in India, comes from the same stock as the old Marquis of Queensberry, and has followed the ring more or less himself. "I had the doubtful honour," says he, bringin' both eyes into range on me, "of backing a certain Mr. Palmer, whom we sent over here several years ago after a belt." "He got more'n one belt," says I.