That fella is a director in one of the biggest banks in New York City. They’s been articles printed about his brains, how they made him what he is today—a giant of finance and a fella that the Morgans call him up and ask his opinion before they buy a new package of pipe-cleaners.
Well, he blew in here three nights ago and he come to this table and bought a hundred dollars’ worth of five-dollar checks. He didn’t play till I’d made ten or a dozen rolls, but he marked down the colors as they come up. Then he played two checks on the red, and it was black, so he doubled up, and it was red, and he kept going along that way till he was two hundred winner, and he quit. The next night he done the same thing over there at Harry’s table, only he win three hundred instead of two.
I suppose he went back to the hotel pretty near kissing himself for discovering a system that couldn’t lose and planning what he was going to do to us with it. He figured: They’s just as many red numbers as they is black numbers, so the red is bound to come as often as the black, and if you keep doubling up every time the red don’t come, why, you’re bound to be ahead at the finish. I guess it was Columbus that played this system first and that’s why he didn’t have money enough to pay his own way over here. Personally I’ve seen the black come nineteen times in succession and with people playing it most of the time, too.
Last night in strolled our friend—Macomber’s his name—and he brought a couple of ladies with him to witness the big coup. He probably thought I and Harry would be scared of him and not let him play, and he went to the table in that corner, where Joe was dealing. This time he didn’t buy no checks, but he waited till the black had come twice in a row and then laid a hundred-dollar bill on the red. Joe rolled a single O. Macomber played two hundred on the red, and it come black. Then he played four hundred on the red, and it was black again. He bet eight hundred, and it come single O.
Then he said to Joe: “I’m out of ready money,” he said, “but I guess my credit’s good. I’m betting sixteen hundred on the red.”
“Your credit’s fine,” said Joe, “but the limit is a thousand dollars.”
The ball was spinning and they wasn’t no time to argue.
“All right,” says Macomber. “A thousand on the red.”
“Thirteen, black,” said Joe, and Mr. Macomber and his cheerleaders walked out on us.
Well, Joe was playing golf this morning and Macomber seen him and recognized him. He says:
“I don’t know whether to speak to you or not.”
“What do you mean?” says Joe.
“That business last night didn’t look good to me,” says Macomber. “When they’s just as many red numbers as black numbers, it seems to me like red ought to show up on an average of every other time.”
“In the town in Georgia where I come from,” says Joe, “they’s just as many white people as they is colored people. But lots of times I’ve walked two and three blocks and met nothing but dinges.”
“That’s very cute,” said Macomber. “Just the same, it’s my opinion that I was fleeced.”
“I’m going to see that the boss hears that,” said Joe.
“Don’t say a word to him!” says Macomber. “If you do, I’ll deny I ever talked to you.”
“I think he’ll believe me,” says Joe, and went on with his golf game.
So Joe told the boss and the boss was madder than hades, the more so because Macomber’s supposed to be stoop-shouldered from holding up them brains of his.
“I’ll give him an earful,” he told Joe.
“Go as far as you like,” said Joe, “but get the thousand he owes us first.”
Well, I don’t know if Macomber paid the thousand or not, but I do know that he got called something besides Mr. Macomber. When the boss is really sore, he can think of more funny short words than one of these here puzzle experts.
Macomber might be interested in how Jarvis Ralston, the automobile man, got “fleeced” here last month; at the same table, too, with Joe dealing. Ralston was playing twenty-five-dollar checks. He played for an hour, lost fifteen thousand dollars and started away. They was one check that he’d overlooked, or maybe he’d meant to play it on the thirty-six, because it was close to the thirty-six, but it was off the board, not on no number or nothing. Joe called to him about it and Ralston says:
“All right. Play it on Number Eleven.”
So Joe put the check on No. 11, and No. 11 come up. Ralston begin to play again and in twenty minutes he had his fifteen thousand back and five hundred more, and he quit.
Ralston, though, is a nice fella and even the boss didn’t mind much seeing him get better than even after he was so far out. But if he hadn’t got even, you wouldn’t of heard no squawk from him. He’s been around too long to talk about being fleeced in a roulette game.
And yet, being a nice fella and a smart fella, too, don’t seem to mean nothing when it comes to roulette. You will hear sixty percent of all the men you know, smart or otherwise, and ninety-five percent of the women, talking about crooked wheels, and how so-and-so was “robbed” of so much at such and such a place. They’ll lose their shirt on a championship fight that’s been in the bag for a year, and never question
