DELMORE SCHWARTZ
515
tonight to the first ten people who get Screeno. Now as soon as
you have five consecutive numbers, either horizontally or verti–
cally or in a diagonal, please call out loudly and clearly and
come down
to
the stage. Then you will place your disc on the
board and you will win some part of fifty dollars. Remember
now! five numbers in a row! horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Good
luck to all of you! And remember that everyone can't win."
True enough, said Cornelius
to
himself.
The theater fell into semi-darkness, not the movie darkness,
but one in which discreet lights shone on both sides of the
theater and both sides of the stage. A white and pink clockface
flashed on the screen.
It
was, in fact, like a roulette wheel, and
had numbers running from 1 to 100.
In
the center was a pointer,
which suddenly began to whirl furiously about the clockface,
and then slowed down, and then stopped.
"Ninety-nine!" said the businesslike yet airy young man in
an authoritative voice. An usher wrote down the number upon a
blackboard to the right of the screen. The pointer spun again, at
a tremendous pace, so that it was almost a moving blur for a
moment, and then clarified into its arrowlike straightness. The
actual wheel was, of course, in the projection room.
"Fifty-four!" said the young master of ceremonies, simulat–
ing a dramatic tone.
"Screeno!" cried a voice from the balcony in a mocking
voice, while everyone laughed, for obviously no one could have
Screeno as yet.
"I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen," said the young man in
an affable voice, "but we will have to ask you not to be
humorous about this. After all, money is involved, and there has
been much confusion in the past because various people insisted
upon trying to be funny."
"All right, Senator," cried the same balcony voice, and the
audience laughed again. Meanwhile Cornelius had become very
interested. He had both of the first two numbers and had marked
them by pushing his finger through the soft cardboard of each
box.
It
would be curious indeed, he said to himself, if I won.
Probably no one here could make better use of the $425. But I
have never been lucky and I am certainly not a prize-winner.
The pointer was revolving again. "Thirty-nine!" an-
