the envy of
the suckers packed forty deep around them. At the one-eyed man's game
just then they were coming and going in a variety which gave a color of
genuine patronage. That was an admirable arrangement, doubtless due to
the one-eyed man's sagacity, which the doctor had noted the night
before. For the game had its fascination for him, not because the fire
of it was in his veins, but because it was such an out-and-out skin game
that it was marvelous how fools enough could be found, even in a
gathering like that, to keep it going.

The living pictures had just passed off the stage, and it was the
one-eyed man's inning. He rattled his dice in the box, throwing his
quick glance over the crowd, which seemed reluctant to quit the
beer-tables for his board. Art was the subject which the gambler took up
as he poured out his dice and left them lying on the board. He seemed so
absorbed in art for the moment that he did not see a few small bets
which were laid down. He leaned over confidentially and talked into the
eyes of the crowd.

"Art, gentlemen, is a fine thing for the human race," said he. "You have
just saw an elegant exhibition of art, and who is there in this crowd
that don't feel a better man for what he saw?"

He looked around, as if inviting a challenge. None came. He resumed:

"Art in all its branches is a elegant fine thing, gentlemen. It raises a
man up, and it elevates him, and it makes him feel like a millionaire.
If I only had a dime, as the man said, I'd spend it for a box of
cigareets just to git the chromo-card. That's what I think of art,
gentlemen, and that's how crazy I am over it.

"Now, if anybody here wants to bet me I ain't got two eyes, I ain't a
goin' to take him up, for I know I ain't, gentlemen, and I've knowed it
for thirty years. But if anybody wants to bet me I can't throw
twenty-seven----"

This was the one-eyed man's game. He stood inside the curve of a
crescent-shaped table, which struck him almost under the arms, his back
to the wall of the tent. Players could surround him, almost; still,
nobody could get behind him. In that direction there always was a way
out. He stood there offering odds of five to one to anybody who wanted
to bet him that he couldn't himself, with his own hand and his own dice,
throw twenty-seven. Any other number coming out of the box, the one-eyed
man lost.

Examine the dice, gents; examine the box. If any gent had any doubts at
all about the dice being s