Mrs. Dyckman was the more agile in snatching up her cards and
placing them. Her eyes darted along the stacks with certainty,
and she came in first by a lead of three cards.
Dyckman was puffing with exhaustion and pop-eyed from the effort
to look in seven directions at once. It rendered him scarlet to
be outrun by his wife, who was no Atalanta to look at. Besides,
she always crowed over him insufferably when she won, and that was
worse than the winning. When Jim entered the room she was laughing
uproariously, pointing the finger of derision at her husband and
crying:
"Where did you get a reputation as a man of brains? There must be
an awful crowd of simpletons in Wall Street." Then she caught sight
of her son and beckoned to him. "Come in and hold your father's
head, Jimsy."
"Please don't call me Jimsy!" Jim exploded, prematurely.
His mother did not hear him, because his father exploded at the
same moment:
"Come in and teach your mother how to be a sport. She won't play
fair. She cheats all the time and has no shame when she gets caught.
When she loses she won't pay, and when she wins she wants cash on
the nail."
"Of course I do!"
"Why, there isn't a club in the country that wouldn't expel you
twice a week."
"Well, pay me what you owe me, before you die of apoplexy."
"How much do I owe you?"
"Eight dollars and thirty-two cents."
"I do not! That's robbery. Look here: you omitted my score twice
and added your own up wrong.
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