"How many of them knitted crawdabs you sold out there at your booths?" he demands. "Not enough to buy a single Belgian a T-bone steak and fried potatoes." "Is that so, indeed?" I says. "Excuse me a minute. Standing here in the blinding light of your triumph, I forgot a little matter of detail such as our sex is always wasting its energies on." So I call Sandy and Buck away from their Belgian atrocities and speak sharply to 'em. "You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves," I says--"winning all that money and then acting like old Gaspard the Miser in the Chimes of Normandy! Can't you forget your natural avarice and loosen up some?" "I bought the bar, didn't I?" asks Sandy. "I can't do no more, can I?" "You can," I says. "Out in that big room is about eighteen tired maids and matrons of Red Gap's most exclusive inner circles yawning their heads off over goods, wares, and merchandise that no one will look at while this sinful game is running. If you got a spark of manhood in you go on out and trade a little with 'em, just to take the curse off your depredations in here." "Why, sure!" says Sandy. He goes back to the layout and loads Buck's hat full of red and blue chips at one and two dollars each. "Go buy the place clean," he says to Buck. "Do it good; don't leave a single object of use or luxury. My instructions is sweeping, understand. And if there's a harness booth there you order a solid gold collar for old Jerry, heavily incrusted with jewels and his initials and mine surrounded by a wreath. Also, send out a pint of wine for every one of these here maids and matrons. Meantime, I shall stick here and keep an eye on my large financial interests." So Buck romps off on his joyous mission, singing a little ballad that goes: "To hell with the man that works!" And Sandy moves quickly back to the wheel. I followed and found Cora barely surviving because she's lost nine of her three-dollar bets while Sandy was away, leaving her only about a hundred winner. Len was telling her to "be brave, Pettie!" and she was saying it was entirely his fault that they hadn't already got their neat little home; but she would have it before she left the place or know the reason why. It just did seem as if them three numbers had been resting while Sandy was away talking to me. They begin to show up again the minute he resumed his bets, and Cora was crowding onto the same with a rising temperature. Yes, sir, it seemed downright uncanny or miraculous the way one or the other of 'em showed up, with Sandy saying it was a shame to take the money, and Cora saying it was a shame she had to bet on all three numbers and get paid only on one.