He chokes and says: 'What nonsense?' And I ask him
does he think I'd pay a thousand dollars out on a game I hadn't
overlooked? And he says didn't I agree to in the presence of witnesses,
and the cards is laid out right there now on the dining-room table if I
got the least suspicion the game wasn't played fair, and will I come up
and look for myself! And I says 'Not in a thousand years!' Because what
does he think I am!
"So then Mis' Wales she breaks in and says: 'Listen, Mr. Floud! You are
taking a most peculiar attitude in this matter. You perhaps don't
understand that it means a great deal to dear Leonard and me--try to
think calmly and summon your finer instincts. You said I could not only
play with my own cards at any hour of the night or day, but in my own
home; and I chose to play here, because conditions are more harmonious
to my psychic powers--' And so on and so on; and she can't understand my
peculiar attitude once more, till I thought I'd bust.
"It was lucky she had the telephone between us or I should certainly of
been pinched for a crime of violence. But I got kind of collected in my
senses and I told her I already had been pushed as far as I could be;
and then I think of a good one: I ask her does she know what General
Sherman said war was? So she says, 'No; but what has that got to do with
it?' 'Well, listen carefully!' I says.
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