Beting & Choping

In the story "Man from the South" by Roald Dahl, Carlos, a small man that is over 50 years old likes to bet about him giving away his car if he loses and chopping of a little finger if he wins. The bet he does in this short story is with an american sailor-in-training boy around 20 years old that says that his lighter never fails, so Carlos decides to make the bet with him. The bet made consists on: if the boy lights up his lighter 10 times in a row without failing once, he wins Carlos´car, a very fine Cadillac, but if he fails, Carlos will have to chop off his little finger of the left hand. In the end they don't finish the bet because Carlos´wife appears and stops the bet, she apologizes to everyone in the room; the narrator, the English girl and the sailor boy. She explains that Carlos has always liked to do this ridiculous bets, and that because of betting, he has lost it all and has chopped 43 fingers, she even told that the Cadillac he was betting was of her, not of Carlos.