Nobody did. The circle was made, the ten nuts arranged at their proper distances. I begged my host to shoot first. There was a breathless hush as he went down on his knees and shot a perfect Two—at which there was a murmur of applause.
Then I stroked my nut and asked it for a One. Out it went, spinning like a little whirlwind, and a One it was.
It is etiquette, in the tictoc game, for the winner to pick up the fighting nuts and bring them back to the base. Loser shoots first. This time the chief shot a Three. I was feeling warm-hearted. Who “wouldn’t, if he was certain to win a diamond that would make the Koh-i-noor and the Cullinan diamonds look like stones in a fifty-dollar engagement ring? So I said to my nut, “This time, for the sport of the thing, get me a Five. But last shot we’ll have another One and the best out of three games.”
It did as it was bid, and I lost with a Five. The Chief much elated, got our nuts and handed me mine with grave courtesy. I shot with perfect confidence. Imagine my horror when, instead of moving with grace and deliberation, it reeled drunkenly forward and barely reached the periphery of the circle! I wondered, could that mescal-like stuff I had drunk have gone to its head through mine? Thinking with all my might, I shot again—and knocked one nut out of the ring. A third time, and I finished with an Eight.
The chief went to pick up our nuts. I was numb with grief. He handed me the nut I had played that last game with. I looked at it—and it was not my own!
Then the truth dawned on me. The old rascal had swapped nuts after the second game! Simple as that. But I kept my temper, because in a split second everybody had stopped laughing, and every man had produced a machete, an ax, a bow or spear. I said, “There is some mistake here, sir. This is not my tictoc nut.”
“Then whose is it?”
“Yours. You are, no doubt inadvertently, holding mine in your hand. Give it back, if you please.”
And driven beyond prudence, I made a grab at it. I was fast, but he was faster, and surprisingly strong. I, too, am tolerably strong in the fingers. We stood locked, hand to hand, for about twenty seconds. Then I heard and felt a sharp little crack. So did he, for he stood back, waving away his tribesmen who were closing in. . He held out his hand with dignity; it held the common tictoc nut that he had palmed off on me. In my palm lay my own true nut, but split down the center, exposing the kernel.
I looked at it, fascinated. You know, I studied medicine once—might be in Harley Street by now, only there was a bureaucratic misunderstanding about four microscopes I borrowed. Silly old asses! I’d have got them out of pawn and put them back where I’d found them, as soon as my remittance came in. But no, they gave me the sack.
However, I have read some anatomy, and I solemnly swear that the kernel of my poor tictoc nut definitely and in detail resembled the human brain—convolutions, lobes, cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla—in every respect.
Most remarkable of all, when I touched it affectionately with my finger tip, it throbbed very faintly, and then lay still. Whereupon some of the virtue seemed to drain out of me, and I cried like a child.
But I pulled myself together and said, “Well, the bet is off. The game is null and void. Let me get my men together and push off.”
Then, in the light of torches, I saw bundles on the shore —very familiar bundles.
“To save your men unnecessary exertion,” the chief said, “I had them unload your canoes for you. I wish you no harm, but put it to you that you go quietly back where you belong. Come, you shall not go empty handed. Take as many small nuggets as your two hands can hold, and depart in peace. You overreached yourself. I would have given you the diamond for the thinking nut, and gladly, in fair exchange. But no, you had to cheat, to do bad trade, to bet on a sure thing. In this life, nothing is sure.”
I said, holding out the revolver, “And what will you give me for this?”
“Oh, two double handfuls of gold.”
“May I suggest three?”
“If you will allow me to test it first.”
I did. He fired one shot into the dark. I took the gun back and said, “First, the gold.”
Down by the river I took the liberty of scooping up a handful of heavy clay and filling up the barrel of that revolver. It would dry like brick. That old rogue would never play tictoc again.
But in burying the remains of my thinking nut, I had a weird feeling that I was leaving behind a certain essential portion of myself. Gold and jewels I can get again. But that, never.
“So I got to the coast and took ship, as a passenger this time, on a heavy freighter bound for Tampa, Florida. What with one thing and another, I arrived with only a few nuggets left, which I keep as ... I don’t know, call it keepsakes. You have been very kind to me. Let me give you one—a very little one—and then I must be on my way. Have this one.”
He dropped a heavy gold pellet on the wet table. It was not much larger than a pea, but shaped, or misshapen, beyond human conception. Fire and water had done that. “Have it made into a tie pin,” said Pilgrim. “But I couldn’t take a valuable thing like this,” I cried, “without doing something for you in return!”
“Not a bit of it. We limeys must stick together, and I’m on my way to Detroit. About seven days from now, John Pilgrim, at Detroit’s leading hotel, will find me. Help me on my way, if you like, but—” He shrugged.
“I have only ten dollars,” I said, deeply moved by a certain sadness in Pilgrim’s eyes. “You’re welcome to that.”
“You’re very obliging. It shall be returned with interest.”
“I must go now,” I said.
“So must I,” said he.
Marveling at the intricacies of the human mind, I walked until I found myself on Sixth Avenue, near West 46th Street, in which area congregate those who, with pitying smiles and a certain kind of shrug, can flaw a diamond carat by carat until you are ashamed to own it, and with a shake of the head depreciate a watch until it stops of its own accord. On impulse I went into a shop there and, putting down Pilgrim’s nugget, asked what such a bit of gold might be worth.
His reply was, “Ya kiddin’? Tickle me so I’ll laugh. What’s the current price of printer’s metal? . . . Worth? Kugel’s Kute Novelties sell those twelve for fifty cents, mail order. I can get ‘em for ya a dollar for two dozen. A teaspoonful lead, melt it and drop it in cold water. You can honestly advertise ‘no two alike.’ Gild ‘em, and there’s a nugget. A miniature gold brick. That manufacturer, so he puts out loaded dice ‘for amusement only’—he sells ‘em too. Seriously, did you buy this?”
I said, “Yes and no.” But as I dropped the nugget into my pocket and turned to go, the shopman said, “Wait a minute, mister—it’s a nice imitation and a good job of plating. Maybe I might give you a couple bucks for it!”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” I said, my suspicions aroused. I fondled the nugget in my pocket; it had the indescribable, authentic feel of real gold. As for that trick with melted lead and cold water, I suddenly remembered that I had played it myself about thirty years ago, with some broken toy soldiers, just for the sake of playing with fire. Recently-melted lead has a feel all its own, and is sharp at the edges. But my nugget felt old and worn.
“It could be, after forty years, for once I made a mistake,” the man said. “Let’s have another look.”
But I went out, and visited another shop a few doors away: one of those double-fronted establishments, in the right-hand window of which, under a sign which says OLD GOLD BOUGHT, there lies a mess of pinchback bracelets, ancient watch chains, old false teeth and tie pins. In the other window, diamonds carefully carded and priced at anything between two thousand and fifteen thousand dollars. The proprietor, here, looked as if he were next door but one to the breadline.