Big Game
No paths go down to the still dirty water of the Sea House. The polychromatic coze dun with lightlessness. This is where Tot the Water Giant, Mish the Big Fish, Brush the Weed-pad, and Mash the Blue Devil cribbage all decade . . . as light and trite as bubbles, Hat-Peg and Peg-Top and Top the Peg-a-Ramsey gavotte sludgily on the cribbage-board. Tot deals a three-two-one once Brush has thoroughly mish-mashed the shuffle. Slowly the thumbed tricks pinnacle. Dumb, pig-eyed, William the Silent (the Big Whale) sounds profoundly; and some- times sidles into the glum party. Nobody listens to William. Well, and how could they? William, he doesn't care. But every time Brainwave the Deep Sea Diver drops in blossoming down through a bright bouquet of bubbles, assured as a war-head, what they do is cut his lifeline and braces, give him dummy to hold, and the game goes on. Brainwave loses, he's not up to such low company. Tot grins mile-wide and gobbles him. That's what happens if you're not flush with sea-bed money. Brush leans over and wipes where he sat: the little pegs hornpipe and titter on the board. The next Diver drops like an egg for boiling, Brainwave his name as well,
to be cribbed in the cribbage. When Tot swallow% . cocking his head back, look! a new pair of legs foreshortened in bubbles and plummeting. Mash,
howls and blues the water. Mish takes a trick.
William (rolling) spouts the taper out.
They play by the wavering light of the waving
Previous page
