Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/74

60 No sooner had we finished the drink than the Tuttle person said to me:

"I'll give you one chance to get even. I'll guess your fingers this time." Accordingly I put one hand behind me and firmly crossed the fingers, fancying that he would guess them to be uncrossed. Instead of which he called out "Crossed," and I was obliged to show them in that wise, though, as before pointed out, I could easily have defeated him by uncrossing them before revealing my hand. I mean to say, it is not on the face of it a game one would care to play with casual acquaintances, and I questioned even then in my own mind its prevalence in the States. (As a matter of fact, I may say that in my later life in the States I could find no trace of it, and now believe it to have been a pure invention on the part of the Tuttle person. I mean to say, I later became convinced that it was, properly speaking, not a game at all.)

Again they were hugely delighted at my loss and rapped smartly on the table for more drink, and now to my embarrassment I discovered that I lacked the money to pay for this "round" as they would call it.

"Beg pardon, sir," said I discreetly to Cousin Egbert, "but if you could let me have a bit of change, a half-crown or so" To my surprise he regarded me coldly and shook his head emphatically in the negative.

"Not me," he said; "I've been had too often. You're a good smooth talker and you may be all right, but I can't take a chance at my time of life."

"What's he want now?" asked the other.

"The old story," said Cousin Egbert: "come off and left his purse on the hatrack or out in the woodshed some