I paused before I answered. Twenty-fifth degree? Since when could a gambling casino afford a full-time Twenty-fifth? TK's in the upper degrees come high. I had already figured my fee at a hundred thousand a day, if I straightened out the casino's losses to the cross-roader. "Wally Bupp," I said at last, deciding there was no point to trying some cover identity. My gimpy right wing was a dead giveaway. "Thirty-_third_ degree," I added. He had a crooked grin, out of place beneath his scholarly glasses. "I've heard of Wally Bupp," he admitted. Well, he should have. There aren't so many Thirty-thirds hanging around. "And you are young, smug and snotty enough to play the part," he concluded without heat. "Still, that's all it might be, just play-acting, with Barney going through the motions of being blind. You could be outside the Lodge, sonny. Any cross-roader who can tip dice the way you were working them can twitch an ear. Let's see some credentials." He scuffed through the sawdust to the bar and took a stack of silver dollars from his apron. He held them, dealerwise, in the palm of his hand, with his fingertips down, so that they were a column surrounded by a fence of fingers. "How many?" he asked. I shrugged. "The whole stack, Smythe," I told him. His eyebrows went halfway up his tall, tall forehead. But he put them all down on the bar top, about twenty-five silver dollars. "Show me," I said. He ran his fingertips down the side of the stack of silver. Another tactile. Well, he certainly wasn't much of a perceptive, or he would have been able to handle the Blackout himself. He closed his eyes for the hard lift. Some do that. The coins came up off the mahogany an inch or so, and made a solid smack when the lift broke and he dropped them back. Not very impressive work for a Twenty-fifth degree. The coins spilled over. * * * * *