the
kitchens of the restaurant, which drew the attractive women of the
quarter into the safest possible association with their victims
crowding the "Valkyrie" saloon.

A vigilant business man, August Meyer came each evening to settle
the days' affairs and personally watch the money mill next door,
which ran noiselessly on golden wheels from nine o'clock till
midnight.

No one had Meyer's confidence; he left no tell-tale papers to connect
him with the gruff pharmacist of Sixth Avenue, and at midnight he
always vanished to his own private home, a diligently guarded terra
incognita to all men.

A sphinx-like "Oberkellner" received the orders of the proprietor
each evening; a steward of equal taciturnity "ran" the restaurant,
and August Meyer himself, with autocratic power, directed the
villainous operations of No. 192 Layte Street.

Popular with the police, exact in his monthly settlements with the
ground landlords and the despotic brewery king, Fritz Braun avoided
both the failings which had wrecked the golden fortunes of the dead
Sohmer.

But, alas! no man is equally strong against all temptations. Deaf
to woman's wail; brutal and heartless; too fearful of his past
record to give himself up to the bowl, Fritz Braun, blase and tired
of every side of human life, had drifted easily into the desperate
craze of the insatiate gambler.

It was months after he had found No. 192 Layte Street to be
a never-failing mint, when Braun became fascinated with the whirr
of the roulette ball, the varying chances of the faro box, and, at
last, the fine peculiarities of "unlimited poker" swept away his
once callous prudence.

Night after night, in the grim quartette of a ruinously high game,
August Meyer "held his hand" recklessly, while a street railroad
magnate, a millionaire importer, and a reigning politician swept
away the revenues of the "Valkyrie." He was rolling the stone of
Sysiphus up hill now. He had forged his own ruin.

Alone in the world, a desperate Ishmael, Fritz Braun needed the
secret protection of these powerful plutocrats. Silently he had
suffered his huge losses, waiting for the luck to turn, and now, on
the eve of his great coup of criminal sagacity, he awoke at last
to his own imperiled fortunes, and yet he feared to own that he
dared not cease gambling, that he could not "throw up his hand."

And, by one of the fantastic turns of luck which haunt even
the safest "dealing" games, he had seen the tide of