ated stubbornly. "I didn't have to! I was playing
in luck--wonderful luck--sheer, dumb luck. I couldn't HELP winning. But
because I was winning and because they were watching, I was careful not
to win on my own deal. I laid down, or played to lose. It was the cards
they GAVE me I won with. And when they jumped me I told 'em that. I
could have proved it if they'd listened. But they were all up in the
air, shouting and spitting at me. They believed what they wanted to
believe; they didn't want the facts."

It may have been credulous of me, but I felt the boy was telling
the truth, and I was deeply sorry he had not stuck to it. So, rather
harshly, I said:

"They didn't want you to tell them you were a brother to Adolph Meyer,
either. Why did you think you could get away with anything like that?"

Talbot did not answer.

"Why?" I insisted.

The boy laughed impudently.

"How the devil was I to know he hadn't a brother?" he protested. "It was
a good name, and he's a Jew, and two of the six who were in the game are
Jews. You know how they stick together. I thought they might stick by
me."

"But you," I retorted impatiently, "are not a Jew!"

"I am not," said Talbot, "but I've often SAID I was. It's helped--lots
of times. If I'd told you my name was Cohen, or Selinsky, or Meyer,
instead of Craig Talbot, YOU'D have thought I was a Jew." He smiled and
turned his face toward me. As though furnishing a description for the
police, he began to enumerate:

"Hair, dark and curly; eyes, poppy; lips, full; nose, Roman or Hebraic,
according to taste. Do you see?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"But it didn't work," he concluded. "I picked the wrong Jew."

His face grew serious. "Do you suppose that Smedburg person has
wirelessed that banker?"

I told him I was afraid he had already sent the message.

"And what will Meyer do?" he asked. "Will he drop it or make a fuss?
What sort is he?"

Briefly I described Adolph Meyer. I explained him as the richest Hebrew
in New York; given to charity, to philanthropy, to the betterment of his
own race.

"Then maybe," cried Talbot hopefully, "he won't make a row, and my
family won't hear of it!"

He drew a quick breath of relief. As though a burden had been lifted,
his shoulders straightened.

And then suddenly, harshly, in open panic, he exclaimed aloud:

"Look!" he whispered. "There, at the end of the wharf--the little Jew in
furs!"

I followed the direction of his eyes. Belo