Man from the south door Roald Dahl

Somewhere at a Hotel in Jamaica, a man is sitting down at a swimming pool. He is not an American, but he speaks English very well. Suddenly an old man is sitting down next to him. Listening to his accent, the old man is probably somewhere from South-America.

They had a little conversation and then they watched the people play in the swimming pool, until a young man and a girl came out of the pool and sat down next to the old man. The young man got himself a cigarette and wanted to light it with his lighter.

Then the old man said it wouldn’t work in this wind. But the boy said his lighter always works, even with this wind. The old man wanted to make a bet with the boy. He said: ‘We go up to my room where there is no wind and I bet you cannot light this lighter of yours ten times without missing once’.
‘I’ll bet I can’, the boy said.
‘Ok’, the old man said. If you strike your lighter ten times successfully I’ll give you my car, a brand new Cadillac. But if you fail then I chop off the little finger that’s on your left hand. At first the boy was shocked, and he thought it was a crazy bet. But on the other side he could win a Cadillac so finally he agreed.

So they all went up to the old man’s room and they had a drink first. The old man called for a maid and he asked her to get him a chopping knife, a hammer and some nails. He hammered the nails into the top of the table. The boy had to sit down and put his left hand on the table so the old man could tie his hand with a string to table.

Now the bet was ready to begin.
The boy kept his lighter in his right hand, and the old man held the chopping knife in the air. They were both watching the lighter very carefully. Then the boy began to strike his lighter. The first seven times he did it successfully. But when the boy lighted his lighter for the eighth time, a woman entered the room. She rushed forward and took the chopping knife from the old man and threw it away.

The woman began to explain it all. ‘This old man is a menace’, she said. Down where they live at home he had taken altogether 47 fingers from different people, and had already lost 11 cars.
‘I suppose he bet you a car’, the woman said. ‘Well, that’s my car’, she said.
He hasn’t anything left to bet with. As a matter of fact I myself won it all from him a long time ago. And when she grabbed the keys from the table they could see her hand for the first time. It had only one finger on it and a thumb.