“How did you ever study it out?” says I, beginning to be glad about my investment again. “I never tried that way, but it sounds promising.” “Such being the case, I got a hunch,” says Stranger. “Here goes for a gold chain or a wooden leg. Take my hand and watch me peer into the future.” We wiggled through to the table after a while. The dealer was a voluptuous swell, accentuated with solid gold log chains and ruby rings where convenient. I knew him. He wore a copyrighted smile losing, and a nasty sneer when he won. An overbearing man and opportune, Frenchy, addicted to killing his fellow-man in sheer self-defense, during the absence of his assailant’s friends. Such was his unrefuted statement, the dead gentlemen having never given their testimony. He had been so fortunate in his protections that lots of folks rarely ever went out of their way to annoy him. Stranger began hostilities by depositing a twenty on the black. Red ensued. Another twenty on black. Black comes. Frenchy shoved over a ten, and Stranger looked pained. “I bet twenty dollars,” he said, lifting of his brows. “Ten dollars is the limit for any one bet,” snaps Frenchy, rolling the ball again. “Don’t delay the game. Bet or give up your place.” “But you took my twenty.” He stopped the wheel. “No bets this whirl,” says Stranger. The crowd stopped talking and side-stepped for an alibi in case the gentleman should engage in self-defense. Frenchy bares his teeth and snarls. “You lost. I got the mon. Why didn’t you inquire? You orter understand a game before you buck it. This is my game and my rules goes. See?” “I see,” says Stranger quiet. “Give me tens for these twenties, please.” Snickers from the crowd. Frenchy had them Buffaloed to a standstill. All the same, they had no use for a fellow that let his rights be trampled on this way. And yet Stranger didn’t look noways like a man of patient proclivities, given to turning the other cheek. Some wise ones cashed their chips when they remarked his easy smile. When Frenchy began to roll again we had the table mostly to ourselves. I moves over by the wheel to watch the lookout, him having a game eye and a propensity to be sole witness for Frenchy when his life was attempted. “I will now declare myself as for W. J. Bryan,” says Stranger, dropping ten each on the squares marked 16, 2, 1. “Twenty-seven, red, odd and McKinley,” drones Frenchy, and scoops our thirty. Stranger strings thirty more on 16, 2, 1. “Nine, black, odd! Great Republican gains!” Frenchy’s singsong was plumb exasperating. Stranger adorns his three numbers again with his last thirty, and, as an afterthought, put his rare old iron dollar on single 0. “Single green,” chants Frenchy. “Populist, by jingo!” I says, as Frenchy rakes the three tens and pays ’em, with five more to the green. Ten each on 16, 2, 1. Then he planks the six on double green. “I hate a piker!” he states. And 00 came. “Alfalfa,” I yells. “Grangers for ever!”