And you can still read, can't you, in the midst of your
agonies?"
There was no response to this taunt. The suffering one faded slowly down
the path to the bunk house and was lost in its blackness. A light shone
out and presently came sombre chords from a guitar, followed by the
voice of Sandy in gloomy song: "There's a broken heart for every light
on Broadway--"
I was not a little pained to discover this unsuspected vein of cruelty
in a woman I had long admired. And the woman merely became irrelevant
with her apothegm about foreigners. I ignored it.
"What about that sufferer down there in the bunk house?" I demanded.
"Didn't you ever have toothache?"
"No; neither did Sandy Sawtelle. He ain't a sufferer; he's just a liar."
"Why?"
"So I'll let him go to town and play the number of them stitches on the
wheel. Sure! He'd run a horse to death getting there, make for the back
room of the Turf Club Saloon, where they run games whenever the town
ain't lidded too tight, and play roulette till either him or the game
had to close down. Yes, sir; he'd string his bets along on fourteen and
seven and twenty-eight and thirty-five, and if he didn't make a killing
he'd believe all his life that the wheel was crooked.
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