She didn't say nothin' back, because Mrs. Garrett had started to hand us the little cards that showed where we was to play.
"I suppose I better tell you our rules," she says to me. "Each table plays four deals. Then the winners moves w'ile the losers sets still, except at the first table, where the winners sets still and the losers moves. You change pardners after every four deals. You count fifty for a game and a hundred and fifty for a rubber."
"The way I been playin'," I says, "it was thirty for a game."
"I never heard o' that," she says; but I noticed when we got to playin' that everybody that made thirty points called it a game.
"Don't we see the prizes before we start?" I ast her. "I want to know whether to play my best or not."
"If you win the prize and don't like it," she says, "I guess you can get it exchanged."
"They tell me you're the shark amongst the womenfolks," says I; "so it's a safe bet that you didn't pick out no lady's prize that isn't O.K."
I noticed some o' the other men was slippin' her their ante; so I parted with a two-spot. Then I found where I was to set at. It was Table Number Three, Couple Number One. My pardner was a strappin' big woman with a name somethin' like Rowley or Phillips. Our opponents was Mrs. Garrett and Mr. Messenger. Mrs. Garrett looked like she'd been livin' on the kind of a meal she'd gave us, and Mr. Messenger could of set in the back seat of a flivver with two regular people without crowdin' nobody. So I says to my pardner:
"Well, pardner, we got 'em outweighed, anyway."
They was two decks o' cards on the table. I grabbed one o' them and begun to deal 'em face up.
"If you don't mind, we'll cut for deal," says Mrs. Garrett.
So we cut the cards and it seemed like the low cut got the deal and that was Mrs. Garrett herself.
"Both o' them," says Mrs. Garrett. "Mr. Messenger'll make them red ones for you."
"Make 'em!" I says. "Well, Messenger, I didn't know you was a card factory."
Messenger laughed; but the two ladies didn't get it. Mrs. Garrett dealt and it was her turn to bid.
"I'd feel better if I had one within," says I.
"Are you goin' to bid or not?" she ast me.
"I thought it was the dealer's turn first," I says.
"I've made my bid," she says. "I bid one without."