"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'. Seventeen!
Cert'nly a fine run-off that, I says, and drops 'em in again, limbers my
wrist a couple o' times, and then--two fives and a six--thirty-three! I
gathers 'em in again, takes off my cardigan jacket, lays my cigar on the
rail, jibes my elbows to each side--'Action,' I says. 'Action.' Yer
could hear 'em breathin' a cable length all around me. I curls my
fingers over the box, snaps her across an' back again. The len'th of the