A kiss? Well, that might actually be the sort of stakes he was considering. Nah, they could come up with something better. "Maybe after you rack up a certain number of wins, I would agree to learn how to do something practical, like how to make my own tea. You know, just for emergency situations. That kind of thing." Technically, Jim knew about combining boiling water with tea leaves, but he had refused to pay attention to certain nuances like the actual amount of tea leaves to use, or how long to steep them. It wasn't that Jack had enabled this kind of helplessness. If anything, Jim would have been even worse off with his usual strategy of hiring other people to do it for him. The boss refused to fraternize with the help at all, but his Tiger had been allowed to perform this skill in his presence hundreds of times now. "If I win, you have to make me a page of paper dolls. Or figure out how to hire a local to deliver a singing telegram to me."

What about Moriarty's ability to identify the individual wear patterns on the backs of Jack's deck of cards? Or his sleight-of-hand skills? What, did Jack somehow assume that Jim was a reformed man now, that he would actually play a friendly card game without cheating every which way at once?