thought you ought to tone down a little, so I tried to put you wise. Wish you success at your graft, whatever it is. Come and have a drink, anyhow.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a glass of lager beer,” acknowledged the other.
They went to a café frequented by men with smooth faces and shifty eyes, and sat at their drinks.
“I’m glad I come across you, mister,” said Haylocks. “How’d you like to play a game or two of seven-up? I’ve got the keerds.”
He fished them out of Noah’s valise—a rare, inimitable deck, greasy with bacon suppers and grimy with the soil of cornfields.
“Bunco Harry” laughed loud and briefly.
“Not for me, sport,” he said, firmly. “I don’t go against that make-up of yours for a cent. But I still say you’ve overdone it. The Reubs haven’t dressed like that since ’79. I doubt if you could work Brooklyn for a key-winding watch with that layout.”
“Oh, you needn’t think I ain’t got the money,” boasted -Haylocks. He drew forth a tightly rolled mass of bills as large as a teacup, and laid it on the table.
“Got that for my share of grandmother’s farm,” he announced. “There’s $950 in that roll. Thought I’d come to the city and look around for a likely business to go into.”
“Bunco Harry” took up the roll of money and looked at it with almost respect in his smiling eyes.
