It is possible that the host's son Johnnie, knowing the dime novel motifs, openly cheats the Swede to draw him into a fight. That would make Johnnie an amateur author-artist of sorts, manipulating his audience, the Swede. Metafictionally, it would also complicate the definition of "cheating." The Swede's "demoniac" ravings at Johnnie sound like the puerile reader's resentful accusations when he discovers that authors cheat (lie): "'Yes, you cheated! You cheated! You cheated!'" (341). Crane stresses this metafictional view in the Swede's final act of reading: "The corpse of the Swede, alone in the saloon, had its eyes fixed upon a dreadful legend that dwelt atop the cash-machine: 'This registers the amount of your purchase'" (352). The relation of the "cash-machine" and writing (the "dreadful legend") is an object of Crane's critique.