would have died here on the
ground in front of me."

Getzel grew angry, fierce. He closed his fists, clenched his teeth, and
spoke to himself, just as if there was some one beside him.

"Well, try now. Now that I am not by myself. Now that there are two of
us. Well, Getzel, why are you sitting there like a bridegroom? Let's
play nuts another little while."

"Nuts? Where have I nuts? Didn't I tell you I haven't a single one?"

"Ah, I forgot that you have no more nuts. Do you know what I would
advise you, Getzel?"

"For instance?"

"Have you any money?"

"I have. Well, what of that?"

"Buy nuts from me."

"What do you mean by saying I should buy nuts off you?"

"Fool! Don't you know what buying means? Give me money, and I'll give
you nuts. Eh?"

"Well, I agree to that."

He took from his purse a silver coin, bargained about the price, counted
a score of nuts from the right-hand pocket to the left, and the play
began all over again.

An experienced card-player, the story goes, half an hour before his
death called his son--also a gambler--to his bedside, and said to him:

"My child, I am going from this world. We shall never meet again. I know
you play cards. You have my nature. You may play as much as you like,
only take care not to play yourself out."

These words are almost a law. There is nothing worse in the world than
playing yourself out. Experienced people say it deprives a man even of
his last shirt. It drives a man to desperate acts. And one cannot hope
to rise at the Resurrection after that. So people say. And so it
happened with our young man. He worked so long, shaking his cap, "odd or
even," taking from one pocket and putting into the other, until his
left-hand pocket hadn't a single nut in it.

"Well, why don't you play?"

"I have nothing to play with."

"Again you have no nuts, good-for-nothing!"

"You say I am a good-for-nothing. And I say you are a cheat."

"If you call me a cheat again, I will give you a clout in the jaw."

"Let the Lord put it into your head."

Getzel sat quiet for a few minutes, scraping the ground with his
fingers, digging a hole, and muttering a song under his breath. Then he
said:

"Dirty thing, let us play nuts."

"Where have I nuts?"

"Haven't you money? I will sell you another ten."

"Money? Where have I money?"

"No money and no nuts? Oh, I can't stand it. Ha! ha! ha!"

The laugh echoed over the whole field, and re-echoed in the distant
wood