cket jazz. Shoots five
dollahs. Wham! Ah reads a feeble five. Five stay alive. Five Ah craves.
Lady Luck, boon me. P'odigal five, come home whah de fat calf waits.
Bam! Th'ee an' a deuce. Ah lets it lay. Shoots ten dollahs. Shower down
ten dollahs an' see de train robbeh perform. Shower down, brothers.
Bam! Seven! 'At's twins, but mah luck comes triple. Shoots de twenty.
Shoots twenty dollahs. Heah de bloodhoun' bay. An' Ah reads ten miles.
Chicago bound! Pay day, whah at is you? Lady Luck, don' git feeble.
Angil leanin' on a cloud. De cloud busts! Angil, heah you is--readin'
de five an' five. Five twins, how is you? Shoots fo'ty dollahs."

One of the group spoke to the Backslid. "Mebbe 'at boy's learnin' de
porter business, but he sho' got old in de bone school a long time
back."

The Backslid Baptist grunted his reply.

The Wildcat raked down all of his winnings except a five-dollar bill.
"Shoots five dollahs. Shower down. Windy talk don't shake no possums
loose. Come an' git me on de top limb. Shoots five dollahs. Dynamite
dice, bust de ol' safe do'. Ah craves action. Shoots ten dollahs. Fifty
dollahs."

"How much you got?" A cinnamon-coloured Croesus in the group spoke
softly into the clamour.

The Wildcat turned to him. "Shoots a hund'ed does you crave speed.
Shoots five hund'ed dollahs."

The cinnamon-faced porter produced a roll of bills and stripped a
handful of greenbacks therefrom.

"'At's five hund'ed dollahs. Roll 'em."

"Gallopers, git right."

The Wildcat gave the dice a Turkish bath, a manicure, and a careful
massaging between the perspiring palms of his hands.

He cast a handful of prepared ivory from him. The dice were festooned
with equal parts of luck and technical skill, but their precise
trajectory was interrupted by a string of high joints and low centres
in the track over which rambled the Panama Limited.

"An' I reads--ace and deuce."

The cinnamon-coloured boy picked up the money on the floor.

"'At'll learn you."

The Wildcat was silent. The Backslid Baptist, sharing the shadow of his
associate's sudden cloud of black luck, spoke slowly to him.

"C'm on heah, Wilecat. Us is nex' do' to bein' busted."

In the wake of the Backslid Baptist the Wildcat ambled back through the
swaying cars to the Mazeppa. He carried on his bowed shoulders a load
of misery big enough to bust a bottle of dynamite gin.

The Backslid Baptist stretched himself full length on the long leather
seat o