Six rounds. Seven. Eight. Hawkes had lost nearly a hundred of his fourteen hundred credits. Luck and skill seemed to have deserted him simultaneously. After the eleventh consecutive losing round, Hawkes rose from the table, shaking his head bitterly. "I've had enough. Let's get out of here." He pocketed his winnings--still a healthy twelve hundred credits, despite his late-evening slump--and Alan followed him out of the parlor into the night. It was late now, past midnight. The streets, fresh and clean, were damp. It had rained while they were in the parlor, and Alan realized wryly he had been so absorbed by the game that he had not even noticed. Crowds of home-going Yorkers moved rapidly through the streets. As they made their way to the nearest Undertube terminal, Alan broke the silence. "You did all right tonight, didn't you?" "Can't complain." "It's too bad you had that slump right at the end. If you'd quit half an hour earlier you'd be two hundred credits richer." Hawkes smiled. "If you'd been born a couple of hundred years later, you'd be a lot smarter." "What is that supposed to mean?" Alan felt annoyed by Hawkes' remark. "Simply that I lost deliberately toward the end." They turned into the Undertube station and headed for the ticket windows. "It's part of a smart gambler's knowhow to drop a few credits deliberately now and then." "Why?" "So the jerks who provide my living keep on coming back," Hawkes said bluntly. "I'm good at that game. Maybe I'm the best there is. I can feel the numbers with my hands. If I wanted to, I could win four out of five times, even at a Class A place." Alan frowned. "Then why don't you? You could get rich!" "I _am_ rich," Hawkes said in a tone that made Alan feel tremendously foolish. "If I got much richer too fast I'd wind up with a soft burn in the belly from a disgruntled customer. Look here, boy: how long would _you_ go back to that casino if one player took 80% of the pots, and a hundred people competed with you for the 20% he left over? You'd win maybe once a month, if you played full time every day. In a short time you'd be broke, unless you quit playing first. So I ease up. I let the others win about half the time. I don't want _all_ the money the mint turns out--just some of it. It's part of the economics of the game to let the other guys take a few pots." Alan nodded. He understood. "And you don't want to make them too jealous of you. So you made sure you lost consistently for the final half hour or so, and that took the edge off your earlier winning in their minds." "That's the ticket!" The Undertube pulled out of the station and shot bullet-like through its dark tunnel. Silently, Alan thought about his night's experience. He saw he still had much, very much to learn about life on Earth.