"You have as much as I have."

"Tut! tut! I don't borrow to play cards."

"You do not need to borrow. I say, your stake equals mine, and we
will play at evens, too. Come, deal one hand, poker between two,
and to the hilt."

The other man looked at him and gazed at the heaped pile of coins
and notes which lay before him. He himself was no pale-blooded
opponent, nor usually disposed to slight the opportunities of the
game. "I don't understand," said he finally. "Certainly I am not
willing to pledge my land and 'niggers,' like our friend from
Belmont here. Perhaps my fall has been hard enough not to tempt me
to go on with my sort of luck. Suppose I decline!"

"You don't understand me," said Dunwody, looking him fair in the
face. "I said that your stake can easily be equal with this on the
table. I'll play you just two out of three jack-pots between the
two of us. You see my stake."

"But mine?"

"You can make it even by writing one name--and correctly--here on a
piece of paper. Full value--yes, ten times as much as mine! You
are giving odds, man!"

"I don't understand you."