Subject:Microphone
Entries
Entry 12503
346. [This number was spoken by a man who had just entered my inter- viewing room. Evidently I recognized him, because I answer:] 346? Well now wait a minute, we'll look here. [I open my Numbers Book to check the number and say: [ (346. That's right! 346. Eugene Love.) [I examine my workbook and say:]
(Well, did you play it?)
[I had called out the number 346 to my recording machine. Love thought I Was giving him a lucky number. I was surprised that he had used it and won!] Yes, we played - ah played it Monday and Tuesday, but ah didn't put so much on it Wednesday, and it come out Wednesday.
(Well, what did you make on it?)
Well, ah caught $4.50.
(Four and a half?)
Shure, fer a penny! See, ah combinated [an obsolete word for combine long before I heard it in 1937] it. It's a six-way number. You kin play it six Ways. (Well, I don't know. You see, if you had put some more money on it it might have been a little bit better. You get the idea? I don't know. But try 431 some time. Wait a while though.) Okey. (...that's on the day, see what I mean? [I haven't the slightest idea of what I am talking about.] If you hit, it'll hit Monday. See. If it doesn't hit, why...) You take it on your fault, you responsible for it. Gonna hold you respon- sible for it. (That's right, and you're not paying me anything for it. That's just a little favor.) Well, I see. (Well now, don't - keep it to yourself now, don't let anybody else know around here. Understand?) No.
(All right then.)
All right - 431. (This fellow who was just in here, Eugene Love, came back and told me that he actually played the number which I called out for his name. Ha-ha, he won $4.50 on a penny!) This is Saturday.... [This is the first and last time I ever gave a tip on gambling! I, a man who had never made a bet in my life! I do not want the other person's money. As an adult I have never played cards. Chances I have taken, every day in the hoodoo field. Even in 1970 when at 74 I returned temporarily for field work in St. Petersburg, where one street was tough even in daylight!]