pizen. He was my
pizen and I certainly was his meat. So now, I ain't got nothing in my
pockets except the linings.

"I tells the Sweet Caps Kid just how it was--how right up to the very
last minute I kept expecting the luck to turn and how even then I mighta
got it all back if the game-keeper hadn't been so blamed unreasonable
and mercenary. When my last chip is gone I holds up a finger for a
marker and tells him I'll take another stack of fifty, all blues this
time, but he only looks at me sort of chilly and distrustful and remarks
in a kind of a bored way that there's nothing doing.

"'That'll be all right,' I says to him. 'I'll see you to-morrow.'

"'No, you wont,' he says, spiteful-like.

"'Why,' I says, 'wont you be here to-morrow?'

"'Oh, yes,' he says, 'we'll be here to-morrow, but you wont.'

"'Is that so?' I says, sarcastical. 'Coming in,' I says, 'I thought I
seen the word _Welcome_ on the doormat.'

"'Going out,' he says, 'you'll notice that, spelled backward, it's a
French word signifying _Mind Your Step_.'

"And while I'm thinking up a proper comeback for that last remark of
his'n somebody hands me my hat, and in less'n a minute, seems-like, I'm
out in the street keeping company with myself.

"I tells all this to the Sweet Caps Kid, but still he don't seem
satisfied with my explanation. That's one drawback to the Kid's
disposition--he gets all put out over the least little thing. So I says
to him: 'Cheer up,' I says, 'things ain't so worse. Due to my being in
right with the proper parties we gets this here advance tip, and we
beats the barrier while this here fat Central Office bull, who thinks he
wants us, is slipping his collar on over his head in the morning.
Remember,' I says, 'we are going to the high grass where the little
birdies sing and the flowers bloom. Providence,' I says, 'has an eye on
every sparrow that falls, but nothing is said about the jays,' I says,
'and we'll see if a few of them wont fall for our little cute tricks.'

"Tubby sure, I'm speaking figurative. I aint really aiming for the deep
woods proper. Only I've been in Noo Yawk long enough to git the Noo Yawk
habit of thinking everybody beyond Rahway, New Jersey, is the Far West.
I'm really figuring to land in one of them small junction points, such
as Cleveland or Pittsburgh. And we would too, if it hadn'ta been for
that there head brakeman.

"Anyway, we moons round in a kind of an unostentatious way, with the Kid
still