s. Me and Joey went to a place where they's card games and so
on--only place in town where the village sports can git action. Joey
offers to buy, and does. Stuff tastes kind o' moldy to me, so I asks
have they got any American beer. They have. It's bottled and warm, but
it's beer and tastes like home. It goes down so slick I buy another
round, and then one more, lettin' in a thirsty-lookin' stranger on the
third round. That makes seven bottles altogether. Then I think mebbe I
better pay up now before I lose track. Looey, guess what them seven
bottles o' suds come to in American money."

"M-m-m! Well, say about three and a half or four dollars."

"That's what I figgered," mourned Tim. "But them highbinders want
thirty-two dollars and twenty cents, American gold."

"What!"

"Sad but true. Seems the stuff sells here for four bucks and sixty cents
a bottle. Thinkin' I'm gittin' rooked because I'm a tenderfoot, I raise
a row to oncet and start to climb the guy. Other folks mix in and things
git lively right off. But after I've dropped a couple o' fellers Joey
winds himself round me and begs me not to make him arrest me, and also
tells me I'm all wrong--that's the regular price. So o'course that makes
me out a cheap skate unless I come acrost, and I do the right thing."

"Lucky you had the money on you," said McKay, eying him a bit oddly.

"I didn't," chuckled Tim. "All the dough I had was one pore lonesome
ten-spot--the one I got from ye yesterday, Cap. But I don't tell 'em
that. I jest wave my hand like thirty-two plunks wasn't nothin' in my
young life, and start to work meself out o' the hole. After the two guys
on the floor are brought back to their senses I order up drinks for all
hands and git popular again. Then I git out the bones."

"Oh! I see!" McKay laughed silently.

"Sure. Remember they told us on the boat that these guys will gamble on
anything? And that a feller without shoes on may be some rubber worker
packin' a roll that would choke a horse? Wal, I make a few passes with
them dice o' mine and their eyes light up like somebody had switched on
the current. Then I scrabble me hand around in me pants pocket, like I
was peelin' a bill off a roll so big I didn't want to flash the whole
wad, and haul out that pore li'l' ten and ask would anybody like to play
a man's game.

"They would. I'll say they would. And they got the coin to back up their
play, too. Before I come home I was buyin' beer by the case in