He'd make a nice little lunch, that lad."
"Well, we'll have him, Archie, for to-morrow. We'll have him--the
biggest turkey ever sailed out of ol' Sain' Peer. A whale, look at him."
"Aye, some tonnage to him. But y' never won him here, Sammie?"
"Win _him_ here? _Here_? In Argand's? Ever know anybody win anything
here? No, sir. I won him up to ol' Antone's. Twenty-seven throws at
twenty-five cents a throw."
"Twenty-seven! You could 'a' bought two of 'em for that."
"Bought? Of course I could 'a' bought; but who wants to buy a turkey
Christmas time? Why, any fat old shuffle-footed loafer can take a basket
under his arm and go down t' the market and pay down his money and come
away with a turkey or anything else he wants. 'Tain't the _getting_ him.
Archie--it's the winnin' him from a lot of hot sports that think they
c'n roll dice. Twenty-seven throws I took and with every throw a free
drink of good old cassy--"
"Twenty-seven drinks o' cassy! A lot you knew about what you was rollin'
by then, Sammie."
"'Tain't what I knew, but what I _did_, that counted, Archie, and it
takes more than twenty-seven glasses o' cassy to put my rail under.
_You_ oughter know that, Archie. I knew what I was doin'--don't worry.
An' that twenty-seventh rollin'! I shook 'em up--spittin' to wind'ard
for luck--and lets 'em run. And out they comes a-bowlin'.
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