A little more Numbers Game

So it's coming up tonight, and another sneak preview.

*

THE NUMBERS GAME 3

Rose
I betcha the guy’s a Pinko or a Marxist.
Look out, here comes Mike Lewis…

Bellhop
........Big shot lawyer…

Rose
Too big and too much shooting for my taste.

Bellhop
Hello there, Mr Lewis.

Lewis
..........Hello, Jack.
You made your fortune on the numbers game?

Bellhop
Lost out by one today…

Rose
..........Hey, Mr Lewis
You’re educated. See this movie here?
They say the dialogue’s in verse. Like poems.

Lewis
Fairy talk, Rose, unrealistic. No one
Speaks in verse, there’s no dramatic tension
In that stilted talk.

Bellhop
..........How does it work?

Lewis
....................Like this:
You count the syllables in any line
Ten or eleven does it. Or there’s stress
Like five beats to a bar. The numbers game
Without the money or anything that matters.
Oh yes, and there’s that stichomythia stuff.

Bellhop
That stick of what? It sounds all Greek to me.

Lewis
You’re right, it was the Greeks who used it once.

Rose
What happens in this stick of Missy Whatsit?

Lewis
People exchange one-liners, but in verse.

Rose
You mean a single line? That’s conversation?

Lewis
Not conversation, just a Greek convention.

Bellhop
Them Greeks and Poles are crazy as each other.

Lewis
As crazy as I am talking to a bellhop.

Bellhop
That’s what democracy means, Mr Lewis.

Lewis
And I’m a Republican. Jack. Have to go.
A client’s waiting for me. Oh and Jack…

Bellhop
Yes, Mr Lewis?

Lewis
..........Placing bets tomorrow?

Bellshop
Sure as hell.

Lewis
..........You know what day it is?

Rose
It’s Independence Day, we all know that.

Lewis
Try seven seventy-six.

Bellhop
..........Like suckers do?

Lewis
Sometimes the sucker’s right. You never know…

Rose
Hello Miss Sturridge…

Lewis
..........Nancy! Gotta go.

*

Where's Lewis going? What gives with the numbers? And who the hell is Nancy? All to be revealed in the next exciting episode of... THE NUMBERS GAME.