“Sure,” says he. “I’d ought to. I studied it two years.”
“What’s the name of it mean in English?” I ast.
“You pronounce the Latin wrong,” he says. “I can’t parse it from how you say it. If I seen it wrote out I could tell.”
So I handed him the paper where they give the op’ra schedule.
“That’s her,” I says, pointin’ to the one that was billed for Tuesday night.
“Oh, yes,” says Bishop. “Yes, that’s the one.”
“No question about that,” says I. “But what does it mean?”
“I knowed you said it wrong,” says Bishop. “The right pronouncement would be: L. Armour’s Day Trey Ray . No wonder I was puzzled.”
“Now the puzzle’s solved,” I says. “What do them last three words mean? Louie Armour’s what?”
“It ain’t nothin’ to do with Armour,” says Bishop. “The first word is the Latin for love. And Day means of God, and Trey means three, and Ray means Kings.”
“Oh,” I says, “it’s a poker game. The fella’s just called and the other fella shows down his hand and the first fella had a straight and thought it wasn’t no good. So he’s su’prised to see what the other fella’s got. So he says: ‘Well, for the love o’ Mike, three kings!’ Only he makes it stronger. Is that the dope?”
“I don’t think it’s anything about poker,” says Bishop.
“You’d ought to know,” I says. “You seen it.”
“But it was all jumbled up,” says Bishop. “I couldn’t get the plot.”