Wales wants to know how
much she could bet all at once if she happened to want to. I could just
see Cora having a sharp pain in the heart like a knife thrust when she
thought what she would of win by betting ten dollars instead of one.
Cousin Egbert answers Luella quite viciously.
"Tell that dame the ceiling sets the limit now," says he; "but if that
ain't lofty enough I'll have a skylight sawed into it for her."
Then he goes over to watch, himself, being all ruined up by these
plungers. Leonard was saying: "Now don't be rash, Pettie!" And Pettie
was telling him it was his negative mind that had kept her from betting
five dollars every clip, and look what that would mean to their pile!
Cousin Egbert give 'em one look and says, right out loud, Leonard Wales
is the biggest ham that was ever smoked, and he'd like to meet him, man
to man, outside; then he goes off muttering that he can be pushed so
far, but in the excitement of the play no one pays the least attention
to him. A little later I see him all alone out in the hall again. He was
scrunched painfully up in a chair till he looked just like this here
French metal statue called _Lee Penser_, which in our language means
"The Thinker.
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