“Alright, for the seventh time, I’m supposed to beat twenty-one?”
“No, sir; you’re supposed to get as close to twenty-one as possible without going over twenty-one.”
Of course, the careworn Blackjack dealer’s words had already gone straight through the bearded man’s head, and Booster eyes had diverted elsewhere. An oddly familiar being was perched on a ball and rocking back and forth in a very distracting manner. The Tower Keeper could not pay attention to the game at hand.
“What’s he doing?” Booster asked the casino employee.
“Nothing,” the underpaid card sharp replied. “Why don’t you go over and entertain him for a while?”
“Because we’re playing a card game here.”
“Well, we’re not anymore,” the dealer stated. “You won; here’s a Frog Coin.”
Booster happily took the green token and plodded off towards the ball-balancing acrobat. The price for being rid of him was well worth it for the employee, even if it came out of his own pocket.
Distracted momentarily by the shine of the coin in his hand, Booster failed to see that his path was blocked by Snifit 2, who had been waiting far too long for the Blackjack table to free up. The two collided with an unmelodious “Oof!”
“Hey, Number Two,” the portly man realized, “This place is fun. Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“I did,” the lackey protested, “Several times. Right after telling you about world conquest, thrice during the Thwomp-watching, and twice on the way to Marrymore. You weren’t listening.”
“You could have written them down.”
“I can’t write down every little thing that we do; that would be tedious.”
“Well, either way, I’m glad we came. But what does this have to do with world conquest?”
“We bought half of the stock of this establishment; once Grate Guy’s Casino gets the interest of the public, we’ll be millionaires. With no financial boundaries to hold you back, you can do whatever you want wherever and whenever you want.”
Letting his eyes drift back to the clown on the ball, Booster mused: “I wonder how he can stand on that thing?”
“… Enjoy your stay, sir,” Snifit 2 invited.
And so it was that the Tower Keeper earned his own chunk of the world. Snifits 1 and 2 took over as consultants to the management of the Casino; on their advice, Grate Guy increased distribution of his flyers and rescinded an old policy to allow patronage by the often-obsessive Chomps. Snifit 3 pulled through his own ordeal with only the loss of sensation in his entire body, then proceeded to ghost-write Booster’s best-selling autobiography, “How Not To Let Your Employees Die From A Goomba Attack.” Booster himself earned a vast fortune, and, except for a disastrous attempt to re-marry Valentina, managed to live a long and happy life. Such as it was.
THE END