Working discreetly so as to avoid attention, Cugel seized his racer with the tongs and placed it on the line; Bunderwal did likewise.
Bunderwal addressed his beast: “Good sphigale, run your best; my future hangs on your speed! At the ready! Take position! Go!”
Both men lifted their tongs and discreetly departed the vicinity of the tank. The sphigales ran out across the floor. Bunderwal’s racer, noticing the open doorway, turned aside and fled into the night. Cugel’s sphigale took refuge in the boot removed by Wagmund that he might warm his feet at the fire.
“I declare both contestants disqualified,” said Bunderwal. “We must test our destiny by other means.”
Cugel and Bunderwal resumed their seats. After a moment Bunderwal conceived a new scheme. “The still-room is beyond this wall and half a level lower. To avoid collisions, the serving-boys descend by the steps on the right, and come up with their trays by the steps to the left. Each passageway is closed outside of working hours by one of those heavy sliding shutters. As you will observe, the shutters are held up by a chain. Notice further. This chain here to hand controls the shutter to the stairs on the left, up which the serving boys come with their beer and other orders. Thirdly, each of the serving boys wears a round pill-box cap, to keep his hair out of the food. The game we play is this. Each man in turn adjusts the chain, and he is obliged to lower the shutter by one or more links. At length one of the boys will brush off his cap on the bottom bar of the shutter. When this occurs the man last to touch the chain loses the wager and must relinquish all claim to the post of supercargo.”
Cugel considered the chain, the shutter which slid up and down to close off the passageway, and appraised the serving boys.
“The boys vary somewhat in height,” Bunderwal pointed out, “with perhaps three inches separating the shortest from the most tall. On the other hand, I believe that the tallest boy is inclined to hunch down his head. It makes for an intricate strategy.”
Cugel said: “I must stipulate that neither of us may signal, call or cause distractions calculated to upset the pure logic of the game.”
“Agreed!” said Bunderwal. “We must play the game like gentlemen. Further, to avoid spurious tactics of delay, let us stipulate that the move must be made before the second boy emerges. For instance, you have lowered the shutter and I have calculated that the tallest boy is next to emerge. I may, or may not, as I choose, wait until one boy has emerged, but then I must slip my chain before the second boy appears.”
“A wise regulation, to which I agree. Do you care to go first?”
Bunderwal disclaimed the privilege. “You, in a sense, are our guest here in Saskervoy, and you shall have the honor of the first play.”
“Thank you.” Cugel lifted the chain from its peg and lowered the shutter by two links. “It is now your turn, Bunderwal. You may wait until one boy has emerged, if you choose, and indeed I will expedite the process by ordering more beer for ourselves.”
“Good. Now, I must bend my keenest faculties to the game. I see that one must develop an exquisite sense of timing. I hereby lower the chain two links.”
Cugel waited and the tall boy emerged carrying a tray loaded with four pitchers of beer. By Cugel’s estimate, he avoided the shutter by a gap equivalent to thirteen links of the chain. Cugel at once let slip four links.
“Aha!” said Bunderwal. “You play with a flair! I will show that I am no less dashing than you! Another four links!”
Cugel appraised the shutter under narrow lids. A slippage of six more links should strike off the tall boy’s cap with smartness and authority. If the boys served regularly in turn, the tall boy should be emerging third in line. Cugel waited until the next boy, of medium stature, passed through, then lowered the chain five full links.
Bunderwal sucked in his breath, then gave a chirrup of triumph. “Clever thinking, Cugel! But now quickly, I lower the chain another two links. So I will avoid the short boy, who even now mounts the stairs.”
The short boy passed below with a link or two to spare, and Cugel must now move or forfeit the game. Glumly he let go another link from the chain, and now up from the still-room came the tallest boy. As luck would have it, while mounting the stairs he bobbed his head in order to wipe his nose on his sleeve and so passed under the shutter with cap still in place, and it was Cugel’s turn to chortle in triumph. “Move, Bunderwal, if you will, unless you wish to concede.”
Bunderwal disconsolately let slip a link in the chain. “Now I can only pray for a miracle.”
Up the steps came Krasnark the landlord: a heavy-featured man taller than the tall boy, with massive arms and lowering black eyebrows. He carried a tray loaded with a tureen of soup, a brace of roast fowl and a great hemisphere of sour-wabble pudding. His head struck the bar; he fell over backward and disappeared from view. From the still-room came the crash of broken crockery and almost at once a great outcry.
Bunderwal and Cugel quickly hauled up the shutter to its original position and moved to new seats. Cugel said, “I feel that I must be declared winner of the game, since yours was the last hand to touch the chain.”
“By no means!” Bunderwal protested. “The thrust of the game, as stated, was to dislodge a cap from the head of one of three persons. This was not done, since Krasnark chose to interrupt the play.”
“Here he is now,” said Cugel. “He is examining the shutter with an air of perplexity.”
“I see no point in carrying the matter any further,” said Bunderwal. “So far as I am concerned, the game is ended.”
“Except for the adjudication,” said Cugel. “I am clearly the winner, from almost any point of view.”
Bunderwal could not be swayed. “Krasnark wore no cap, and there the matter must rest. Let me suggest another test, in which chance plays a more decisive role.”
“Here is the boy with our beer, at last. Boy, you are remarkably slow!”
“Sorry, sir. Krasnark fell into the still-room and caused no end of tumult.”
“Very well; no more need be said. Bunderwal, explain your game.”
“It is so simple as to be embarrassing. The door yonder leads out to the urinal. Look about the room; select a champion. I will do likewise. Whichever champion is last to patronize the urinal wins the game for his sponsor.”
“The contest seems fair,” said Cugel. “Have you selected a champion?”
“I have indeed. And you?”
“I selected my man on the instant. I believe him to be invincible in a contest of this sort. He is the somewhat elderly man with the thin nose and the pursy mouth sitting directly to my left. He is not large but I am made confident by the abstemious manner in which he holds his glass.”
“He is a good choice,” Bunderwal admitted. “By coincidence I have selected his companion, the gentleman in the gray robe who sips his beer as if with distaste.”
Cugel summoned the serving boy and spoke behind his hand, out of Bunderwal’s hearing. “The two gentlemen to my left — why do they drink so slowly?”
The boy shrugged. “If you want the truth, they hate to part with their coin, although both command ample funds. Still, they sit by the hour nursing a gill of our most acrid brew.”
“In that case,” said Cugel, “bring the gentleman in the gray cloak a double-quart of your best ale, at my expense, but do not identify me.”
“Very good, sir.”
The boy turned at a signal from Bunderwal who also initiated a short muttered conversation. The boy bowed and ran down to the still-room. Presently he returned to serve the two champions large double-quart mugs of ale, which, after explanation from the boy, they accepted with gloomy good grace, though clearly they were mystified by the bounty.
Cugel became dissatisfied at the fervent manner in which his champion now drank beer. “I fear that I made a poor selection,” he fretted. “He drinks as if he had just come in after a day in the desert.”
