"Still piking, eh?" he chuckled; "you wouldn't trail along after
Your Uncle Bunch and get next to the candy man, would you? Only
$400 to the good to-day. Am I the picker from Picklesburg, son of
the old man Pickwick?--well, I guess yes!"

Then in that desperate moment I broke down and confessed all to
Bunch. I told him how my haughty spirit disdained a tip and how in
the pride of my heart I doped the cards myself and fell in the
well. I told him of my feverish desire to beat the Bookmakers down
through the earth till they yelled for mercy, and I told him of my
pitiful dilemma and how I had to build a home in the country before
noon to-morrow or do a dog trot to the Bad lands.

Then Bunch began to laugh--a long, loud, discordant laugh which
ended in, "John, I'll help you make good!" and then I began to sit
up and notice things.

"I'm away head of this pitty-pat game at the Merry-go-Round," Bunch
went on, "and it so happens that recently I peeled the wrapper off
my roll and swapped it for a country home for my sister and her
daughter. She's a young widow, my sister is, and one of the
loveliest little ladies that ever came over the hill. And she has
a daughter that's a regular plate of peaches and cream."

Still I sat in darkness, and he went on:

"Now, my sister won't move out there for a day or two, so
to-morrow, promptly on schedule time, you lead your domestic fleet
over the sandbars to that house and point with pride to its various