“So they cuts for choice o’ seats, and Pearsall cut low. That give him the choice o’ seats, and he said he’d set where he was. Winterbottom was next lowest man an’ he said he’d set where he was, too. He was suited well enough. But Hapgood, he spoke up again an’ he says that won’t do. The second lowest man must set next on the left o’ the low man, an’ the third lowest next on his left, an’ so on. “Winterbottom started in to cuss a little, not because he cared a cuss, but just because he was surprised, but he got another kick in the shins, an’ takin’ a sudden tumble to hisself, he jumped up an’ took his proper seat. When they’d all got seated again Joe Bassett ast in a general sort o’ way what good all that did, an’ Hapgood says, ‘Why, that’s one o’ the laws in the International Code. You have to do it before you play or else the game wouldn’t be regular.’ “‘That’s right,’ says Joe Bassett. ‘We must play by the rules, but, stranger, we ain’t exactly posted on this here International Code. We play the old Mississippi River rules, the Mississippi River bein’ the place where the game was born an’ growed up. If there’s a International Code we’d like to know about it, an’ if you’ll tell us all about it as we play, we’d think it monstrous kind o’ you.’ “Well, Hapgood says he’ll do it with pleasure, ’n’ he spoke to his keeper an’ tells him to go over to the hotel an’ get the manual out of his portmanteau. ‘The code is in that,’ he says. So the keeper he starts, an’ the boys cut for deal accordin’ to custom, an’ Jake gets it. He shuffles an’ offers the deck to Pearsall, who sits on his right, to cut, but Hapgood speaks up an’ says that ain’t right. ‘The ante man is the man that cuts the cards,’ he says. ‘I don’t know as it makes any great difference,’ he says, ‘who cuts ’em, but that’s what the book says.’ “Winterbottom, he’s gettin’ a little bit old, an’ he’s kind o’ sot in his ways, an’ I c’d see that he was gettin’ sort o’ rattled, but before he c’d say anything, Bassett, he spoke up again. ‘It don’t really make no difference, I reckon,’ he says, ‘but if the book says that the ante man must cut, why, he’s goin’ to cut. On’y you see, stranger, we hain’t familiar with that book an’ we been in the habit o’ lettin’ the feller on the dealer’s right cut the cards. It’s on’y our ignorance, you know. We’re willin’ to learn better.’ An’ he, bein’ the age himself, reaches over and cuts the cards. “Jake, he kind o’ shakes his head a little, but he don’t say nothin’ an’ he starts to deal, but Hapgood he speaks up again. ‘Before we start,’ he says, ‘we must have it understood whether we are going to play any of the variations in the game. We play straights, don’t we, and straight flushes?’ “‘Oh, yes,’ says Bassett. “‘And straights beat three of a kind, don’t they?’ “‘Well, yes,’ says Bassett, ‘they commonly do, when you get ’em.’ “‘And blazers, do we play them, and jumpers? And do we play with a joker?’