Norman was sure of it.

He wished it had been his wager instead of Smith's.

But Parkins stopped Smith a moment.
"Now, young man," he said, "if you don't feel perfectly able to lose that hundred dollars, you'd better take it back." "I am just as able to lose it as you are," said Smith snappishly, and to everybody's disappointment he lifted not the card everybody had fixed on, but the middle one, and so lost his money.
"Why didn't you take the other ?" said Norman boastfully.

"I knew it was the ace." "Why didn't you bet, then ?" said Smith, grinning a little.

Norman wished he had.