Thursday, 4 April 2019

"The Only Game In Town"

Neil Gaiman, American Gods (London, 2001).

Mr Wednesday (Odin) tells a story. Canada Bill Jones was being cheated in a game of Faro in Baton Rouge in 1957. When George Devol asked him if he couldn't see that the game was crooked, Bill replied:

"'I know. But it's the only game in town.'" (10, p. 243)

As a good Poul Anderson fan, I get to say, "So that's were it came from!"

The following morning: See also Upton Sinclair here.

4 comments:

David Birr said...

Paul:
The George Devol in the anecdote can't be the one with a Wikipedia bio, because Wikipedia's George Devol was born some 35 years after "Canada Bill" died.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, well, so that's where Poul Anderson apparently took the title of his story from, a real world three card monte gambler. Talk about obscure historical facts!

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

David,
Thank you. I will have to look into it further.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Oops! I should have addressed my comment to DAVID!

Sean