"Thirty—per cent!" whimpered Howard. "It's mine! I want it!"
He was practically a broken man. His collar was wilted and his eyeglasses misted. He stumbled as he walked. It was simply impossible for him to gamble. He was of that sturdy, conservative group of people who play only sure things, and purchase only gilt-edged securities, and find happiness in the clipping of coupons and the foreclosing of mortgages.
SOME twelve hundred interested citizens followed George and Howard to where the Formosa awed tourists in Tres Aguas by charging more for a sandwich than the average luxury hotel did for a five-course dinner. The police cleared a way for them so they could enter. There was a vestibule inside the Formosa's door. This being Tres Aguas, there was naturally a slot-machine in it. Howard looked at it, hypnotized. George gave him a large coin and said tenderly, "All right, Howard. If you must."
Howard played it, fumbling. It was a dollar machine. It had a jackpot. Dollar machines always make a loud noise when they pay off a jackpot. This one made a louder noise than most.
George practically had to support Howard to a table. Howard moved like a sleepwalker. His hands were clammy and cold. His eyes were wild behind their spectacles. He sat down, seeing nothing, but saying insistently;
"My thirty per cent—"
There was a movement opposite him. Janet sat there, beaming. She'd been waiting for them.
"Howard!" she said enthusiastically. "George called me and told me what you're doing! It's wonderful! How do you do it?"
Howard looked at her through partly glazed eyes.
"It's—impossible," he said numbly. "Impossible! I don't believe it! But I'm getting thirty per cent."
"Here's the morning's take, Janet," said George cheerfully. "All due to Howard's brilliant efforts. Cut it up, will you? Then maybe Howard won't need to count it all for himself."
Janet zestfully counted the folding money. Howard watched anxiously. At the end she gave him his thirty per cent.
"But there was the slot-machine in the vestibule," he wailed.
"To be sure!" said George, abashed. "Sorry, Howard."
He stacked up the silver dollars. He gave George thirty per cent. The waiter came. George ordered exuberantly. This lunch was in a way a celebration of his sudden and unexpected return to solvency. But Howard suffered. He'd seen the menu. He'd have liked to suggest a ham sandwich for himself and the rest in cash. But Janet regarded him with excited, even fond eyes.
"It's wonderful, Howard! You're going to go on, aren't you? Keep on after lunch? May I come along and watch?"
Howard shivered a little. But he struggled back toward sanity. He'd seen the thick mass of folding money Janet had put in her handbag. The sight of so much money going away from him was sobering. Stabilizing. Shocking. He realized that he had made unnecessary concessions to George.
"I do not gamble," he said with dignity. I have not gambled. I will not gamble. As a favor to George I was willing to act as his agent in a certain matter—on commission. But I will not violate my business principles by gambling. And I have other affairs to attend to. If I am to postpone them, from now on I will want the Joe the Greek account and forty percent."
George did not look surprised, but he raised his eyebrows. Janet tapped his arm, "Darling, let me haggle!"
She smiled warmly and persuasively upon Howard.
NATURE, of course, continued to move to restore itself to normal. The dynamic equilibrium of events and forces cannot be permanently destroyed, as was formerly believed. The events in the Himalayas and the Amazon basin and Sydney, Australia, and Perth Amboy—and other places—which were indications of disturbance had all taken place within hours on the same morning. There were undoubtedly other events of the same general character which did not happen to be observed. But the events in Tres Aguas, Nevada, relieved much of the strain. When a person like George Gaines made more money than Howard out of a joint enterprise, little things like two and two visibly making five and things going up and not coming down were practically commonplace. Anyhow a great deal of the stress caused by a disturbance of the balance of nature was already relieved.
There were other, lesser events at divers locations to help in the adjustment. In Smolensk a married man told his wife that she cooked better than his mother had ever done. In Tucson a woman found a blonde hair on her husband's coat—she being a brunette—and immediately remembered that he'd met his sister at the airport and his sister was a blonde. In Philadelphia a sixteen-year-old boy listened to his father's explanation of why he shouldn't drive the family car, and realized that his father was right. In Punta Arenas and on Maioa in the Caroline Islands and other spots here and there on this earth, other impossible things took place. The stress was definitely being relieved.
But in the Formosa, over a dessert that Howard knew stood George four dollars and fifty cents per portion, Janet wrote in a note-book the stipulations of a new agreement with George. George signed it. Howard signed it. Howard considered that he'd driven a hard bargain. He didn't realize that he'd bargained with a woman. Janet closed the notebook.
"I've always wanted to play roulette." She said brightly.
"Let's let Howard do it," said George. "And to give him an unhindered opportunity, let's go to Oswald's."
Oswald's Club is, of course, the most famous of the conservative business establishments in Tres Aguas. The drinks are generous and the bets range from a quarter up and there are some girl dealers and some very well-dressed shills. It is, naturally, completely respectable. Oswald contributes to public charities and has never been caught by the Internal Revenue Service. He is a great man. Oswald's Club is more than a business. It is an institution.
WHEN they reached Oswald's club, it was soon after midday and attendance was low. Most of those who'd been gambling during the forenoon were down at the telegraph office waiting for the money they'd telegraphed home for. There were roulette tables and crap-tables and black-jack setups. But business was dull. George led Howard to a roulette table where a single shill talked boredly to the croupier. Howard sat down uneasily. He looked pleadingly up at George. He had something close to stagefright. He wasn't used to gambling.
"Use your own judgment, Howard," said George kindly. "Such as it is."
He handed Howard a dollar. Howard put it down, numbly. The shill bet a dollar on the first dozen. The croupier spun the wheel.
He paid Howard, indifferently, thirty-five dollars for a bet on number eighteen. Janet took the money and made a memo. George passed down a ten-dollar bill. Howard numbly placed it on a number. The croupier spun the wheel.
He paid Howard thirty-five to one. Janet took the money and made a memorandum. She was inclined to cheer.
When George placed another bill in his fingers, Howard put it down—it was a twenty—with the fumbling motions of someone partly anaesthetized. He did not make a conscious choice. He merely happened to put it down on zero.
The croupier paid him thirty-five to one.
Oswald's Club, as noted, was nearly empty. It was a large place, so even when sparsely occupied it could and did contain people from East Orange and Denver and Amarillo and Puget Sound. There was a honeymoon couple from Chicago and a fugitive bank-clerk from Fort Lau-derdale, and a lovely old couple celebrating fifty years of married life. The atmosphere had been humdrum. Most of those present were hoping to see somebody gamble.
They realized their wish. When Howard won a limit bet on a single number, he had admirers. By some strange telepathy it seemed that the crowd hanging around outside the Formosa scented the activity in Oswald's, They began to stream in. When Howard made his fifth straight win at the limit, he began to have imitators. The odds against a win on a single number at roulette with double zeros are thirty-six to one. The bank paid thirty-five. The odds against two successive wins are 1296 to one. Against three successive wins they are 46,656 to one. Beyond this point they get interesting.