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.The proprietor soonexplained the peculiar designation of the place."It's very simple, really.You see, my name actually is Steven Even.So I justdecided to turn it around and call this The Even Steven.I thought it mightget a few folks puzzled enough to stop and ask questions, and sometimes itdoes.Like yourself.""That's a pretty smart way to use the luck of a name," said the bookieappreciatively."I bet it brings you a lot of business."Mr.Even, a dour and dejected type of individual, seemed glad to have someoneto talk to."It hasn't brought me so much luck," he said."The folks who stop don't staylong.There's not much gaiety around here, as you could see.In fact, there'snot another soul lives closer than thirty miles away, whichever way you go.Makes it pretty lonely for me, a widower.And worse still for my daughters.Three of the loveliest girls you ever set eyes on, should have their pick ofboy friends.But the nearest lads would have to drive thirty miles to pick 'emup, thirty more to take 'em to a movie, thirty miles to bring 'em home, andthirty back themselves.That's more 'n they got time to do even for beautieslike these.The girls are getting so frus-trated they're about ready to doanything for a man."The bookie made sympathetic noises, and listened to more in the same veinuntil hunger obliged him to change the subject to that of food.An excellenthome-cooked dinner was served to him by a gorgeous blonde who introducedherself as Blanche Even; and when he was surfeited she still kept pressing himto ask for anything else he wanted."A toothpick, perhaps?" he suggested.She brought it, and said: "Would you like me to sit and talk to you for awhile?""Thank you," he said politely, "but I've had a long day and I feel likeclosing the book."He went to his room, and had just started to undress when there was a knock atPage 31 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthe door and an absolutely breath-taking brunette came in."I'm Carmen Even," she said."I just wanted to see if you'd got everything youwant.""I think so, thank you," he said pleasantly."I do a lot of traveling, so Ipack very systematically."When he had finally convinced her and got rid of her, he climbed in betweenthe sheets and was preparing to read himself to sleep over the Racing Formwhen the door opened again to admit an utterly stupefying redhead in anegligee to end all negligees."I'm Ginger Even," she announced."I wanted to be sure your bed wascomfortable.""It is," he assured her."I hope you're not just being tactful," she insisted."May I try it myself?""If you must," said the bookie primly."I will get out while you do it."When she had gone, he settled down with a sigh of relief and was about to putout the light at last when the door burst open once more and the proprietorhimself stomped in, glowing with indignation."What's the matter with you?" he roared."I got to listen all night to mydaughters moaning an' wailing, the most lusciousest gals in this county,because they all try to show you hospitality an' you won't give one of 'em atumble.Ain't us Evens good enough for you?""I'm sorry," said the transient."But I told you when I registered, I'm aprofessional bookmaker.I only lay Odds."Mr.Theocritus Way, this chronicler, must now hasten to establish, was not thebookie immortalized in the foregoing anecdote.He was, however, a man who hadconcentrated on the subject of Odds with an almost comparably classicsingle-mindedness.Indeed, one of his oldest but perennially profitable dis-coveries in the fieldwas directly tied to the same numerical quibble between Odds and Evens.At anybar where he might be chumming for potential suckers, when the inevitabledispute eventually arose as to who should buy another drink, he would promptlysuggest that they match for it.The mark could hardly refuse this, and wouldtake from his pocket the conventional single coin.Mr.Way would then say,with a skillfully intangible sneer: "The hell with that penny-matching stuff.That's how some guys got rich making dou-ble-headed coins.Let's play MonteCarlo Match."He always had some high-sounding name, suggestive of authenticity andtradition, for the games that he invented."What's that?" the innocent would ask.Mr.Way would haul out a handful of small change, which he jingled noisily inhis closed fist to leave no doubt that it was a fair quantity."I got a mess of chickenfeed here," he would explain, with labored patiencefor such ignorance."You grab a stack from your own pocket.We slap it all onthe bar two stacks.Sup-pose your stack turns out to be an odd number, and thetotal of our two stacks is also an odd number, you win.Suppose you got an oddnumber, and the total of us two is even, you lose.Or vice versa.That's onebet you can't fix, because neither of us knows how many coins the other'sgoing to have."The mark might win or lose the first time, on this fair fifty-fifty basis.Mr.Way rather liked him to win, because that made it somewhat easier to insist onanother match for money instead of drinks.And one game easily led toan-other, and another, for increasing stakes.If the dupe insisted on themtaking turns as matcher, Mr.Way would take his honest fifty-fifty chance.Butafter the first time, the victim never had a chance to match the total oftheir combined hands in oddness or evenness.Whenever the other was trying to "match," Mr.Way simply took care to havesome odd number of coins in his own stack.Therefore if the mug also had anodd number, the total had to be even; if the mug had an even number, the jointtotal had to be odd.Stated this way, any intelligent reader will see that thePage 32 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlstupe would have had the same fifty-fifty chance of finding somebody with aright foot growing naturally on his left leg.But it was a gimmick which hadpaid Mr.Way more cash dividends than Albert Einstein ever earned from theTheory of Relativity.The fond parent who had him baptized Theocritus was only another of the humanrace's uncounted casualties to misguided optimism.Even in his tenderestyears, his con-temporaries declined to accord him even the semi-dignifiedcontraction of "Theo." They abbreviated him swiftly and spontaneously to"Tick." The record does not show whether this was initially due to hisinstinct for stretching credit to the snapping point whenever he was supposedto do the paying, to his physically insignificant stature, or to hisex-traordinarily irritating personality; or to a combination of all three.Butthe monicker clung to him like flypaper into the middle-aged maturity wherehis path crossed the Saint's, which is the only encounter this short story isseriously con-cerned with.However, in contradiction of some recent propaganda which purports toattribute all adult crime to the cancerous frus-tration of the growing boy, itmust be instantly said that "Tick" Way consistently collected above-averagegrades, and revealed an especial talent for mathematics.But instead of beingthus inspired to think of a career in science or engineering, his temperamenthad been impressed only by the magnificent possibilities of pigeon-pluckingthat were opened up by the magical craft of figures
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