“TWO UP SCHOOL”

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 9

“TWO UP SCHOOL”

HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED. “Heads a quid!” “Set!” “A dollar he can’t tail ’em!’ “You’re on!” They speak in low tones, these intent, set-faced men who sit and stand around the padded floor in the smoky murk of the little room. There is a swift clinking of coin against coin, a rustle of bank notes. Fore some minutes it goes on like

this and. then from the big well-dress-ed man with the frozen face, sitting just outside the centre of the ring, comes: “Are you all set? —Away she goes and a fair spin.” Thus are bets made at two-up—-“sway up” to the Cognoscenti. It is difficult to secure entree to a “two-up” school. Your guide must first discover where the school is being held. So you accompany him to, let us say, a corner of Hyde Park, where the “galah” or “cockatoo” is stationed. Most of the “two-up” schools have two or three or even more meeting places. Hence the “galah.” It is his duty to inform the patrons where the game is being played from night to night. Your pilgrimage begins, in dreary squalid streets. Ultimately you reach a room. It is blue with smoke, and foggy. There is a smell of sawdust, fish and chips, gunpowder, and remote beer. Four cheap kerosene lamps hang from the bare walls. It is not a big room —about 14ft. by 12ft. —but there must be at least 30 men in it. The atmosphere is stifling. The players sit and stand around in a ring. Inside tjie circle are four men —a big man, the “boss,” who exercises a general supervision over the game, and maintains an expressionless survey of the curious company round about him; the “ring-keeper, a hefty individual with a punched-in-nose, who lost his razor several weeks ago; the “picker-up,” who belongs to the derelict class and the man with the “kip.” The impedimenta of “two-up consists simply of a flat piece of wood about five or six inches long, which is called the “kip,” and two Pennies. The pennies are placed on the “kip and tossed into the air. The players bet upon whether they will turn up two heads or two tails. Each player in his order may toss the pennies. Whe’n his turn comes he has the privilege of being “set” first —that is, he may back himself to turn up heads or tails as the case may be, and is accommodated before any other bets are made. The money is thrown into the Ting where the “picker-up” collects it and places it in a heap. The “ring-keeper,” whose larger duties are those of a master of ceremonies, takes a note of the transactions. , „ , After the man with the “kip has been “set,” the other players bet among themselves. One. will call: “Ten bob he heads ’em.” The bet is taken

by his neighbour and the money is placed on the floor in front of them. When everybody is accommodated, the signal is given by the “boss’ or the “ring-keeper,” and the coins are tossed into the air, very deliberately, and with elaborate gesture, as though it were a rite. In order that the result can more easily be determined, the heads are burnished, and the tails covered with black enamel. The floor is padded so that the sound of their fall will be deadened. If the coins fall one head and one tail—"two ones” in the argot of the gambling den —they are tossed again until they fall either two “ins (heads) or two “outs” (tails). Then the stakes are paid over to the winners, and from them the "boss gets

his “cut,” which is a precentage ranging from 10 to 15 per cent. Sometimes a player will call: Bar toss”; and will perhaps rush into the ring and catch a coin before it falls. He has detected a “floater”—a coin which does not spin in the air. It is related that some of the adepts at tossing are so practised that they can “float” a coin so that it will fall as they desire and yet give to the onlookers the impression that it is spinning. Occasionally a player will inspect

the coins and the Kip. remap suspects a “grey,” which is a doubleheaded penny, or a "dish,” which is a coin so dinted in the centre that it can be made to turn up heads or tails

as the case may be after striking the floor. The “kip” is examined for a possible slot in the side where a "doubleheader” might be hidden to be palmed at the right moment. These things are not often done in the schools nowadays.—“ Sydney Sun.”