nd that, counselor," he said sharply.
"Believe me, I have no illusion whatever that this thing is patentable
under the present patent system. Even if it were, this gadget is
designed to do something that may or may not be illegal, which would
make it hazardous to attempt to patent it, I should think. You don't
patent new devices for blowing safes or new drugs for doping horses, do
you?"

"Probably not," I said dryly, "although, as I say, I'm not qualified to
give an opinion on patent law. You say that gadget is designed to cause
minute, but significant, changes in the velocities of small, moving
objects. Just how does that make it illegal?"

He frowned a little. "Well, possibly it wouldn't, except here in Nevada.
Specifically, it is designed to influence roulette and dice games."

I looked at the gadget with a little more interest this time. There was
nothing new in the idea of inventing a gadget to cheat the red-and-black
wheels, of course; the local cops turn up a dozen a day here in the
city. Most of them either don't work at all or else they're too obvious,
so the users get nabbed before they have a chance to use them.

The only ones that really work have to be installed in the tables
themselves, which means they're used to milk the suckers, not rob the
management. And anyone in the State of Nevada who buys a license to
operate and then uses crooked wheels is (a) stupid, and (b) out of
business within a week. Howley was right. Only in a place where gambling
is legalized is it illegal--and unprofitable--to rig a game.

The gadget itself didn't look too complicated from the outside. It was a
black plastic box about an inch and a half square and maybe three and a
half long. On one end was a lensed opening, half an inch in diameter,
and on two sides there were flat, silver-colored plates. On the top of
it, there was a dial which was, say, an inch in diameter, and it was
marked off just exactly like a roulette wheel.

"How does it work?" I asked.

He picked it up in his hand, holding it as though it were a flashlight,
with the lens pointed away from him.

"You aim the lens at the wheel," he explained, "making sure that your
thumb is touching the silver plate on one side, and your fingers
touching the plate on the other side. Then you set this dial for
whatever number you want to come up and concentrate on it while the ball
is spinning. For dice, of course, you only need to use the first six or
twelve numbers on