th.

"I'll make you a sporting proposition," he murmured. "You owe me a
hundred and fifty thousand francs. I'll stake that against what only
two men in the empire can give me."

The prince allowed his eyes to travel slowly round the circle of the
table. But the puzzled glances of the other players showed that to them
Peter's proposal conveyed no meaning.

The prince smiled cynically.

"For yourself?" he demanded.

"For Doctor Gilman," said Peter.

"We will cut for deal and one hand will decide," said the prince. His
voice dropped to a whisper. "And no one must ever know," he warned.

Peter also could be cynical.

"Not even the Sultan," he said.

Abdul won the deal and gave himself a very good hand. But the hand he
dealt Peter was the better one.

The prince was a good loser. The next afternoon the GAZETTE OFFICIALLY
announced that upon Doctor Henry Gilman, professor emeritus of the
University of Stillwater, U. S. A., the Sultan had been graciously
pleased to confer the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crescent.

Peter flashed the great news to Stetson. The cable caught him at
Quarantine. It read: "Captured Crescent, Grand Cross. Get busy."

But before Stetson could get busy the campaign of publicity had
been brilliantly opened from Constantinople. Prince Abdul, although
pitchforked into the Gilman Defense Committee, proved himself one of its
most enthusiastic members.

"For me it becomes a case of NOBLESSE OBLIGE," he declared. "If it
is worth doing at all it is worth doing well. To-day the Sultan will
command that the 'Rise and Fall' be translated into Arabic, and that
it be placed in the national library. Moreover, the University of
Constantinople, the College of Salonica, and the National Historical
Society have each elected Doctor Gilman an honorary member. I proposed
him, the Patriarch of Mesopotamia seconded him. And the Turkish
ambassador in America has been instructed to present the insignia with
his own hands."

Nor was Peter or Stimson idle. To assist Stetson in his press-work, and
to further the idea that all Europe was now clamoring for the "Rise and
fall," Peter paid an impecunious but over-educated dragoman to translate
it into five languages, and Stimson officially wrote of this, and of the
bestowal of the Crescent to the State Department. He pointed out that
not since General Grant had passed through Europe had the Sultan so
highly honored an American. He added he had been requested by t