which, while apparently passing out of the windows, in reality plunged
behind a desk into a small "dry" battery. Each table was fitted with a
shaded electric drop-light, and the room was furnished with the ordinary
paraphernalia of a telegraph office. The janitor never observed any
activity in the "school." There seemed to be no pupils, and no one
haunted the place except a short, ill-favored person who appeared
monthly and paid the rent.

On the afternoon of February 1st, 1905, Mr. Felix was called to the
telephone of his store and asked to make an appointment later in the
afternoon, with a gentleman named Nelson who desired to submit to him a
business proposition. Fifteen minutes afterward Mr. Nelson arrived in
person and introduced himself as having met Felix at "Lou" Ludlam's
gambling house. He then produced a copy of the _Evening Telegram_ which
contained an article to the effect that the Western Union Telegraph
Company was about to resume its "pool-room service,"--that is to say, to
supply the pool rooms with the telegraphic returns of the various
horse-races being run in different parts of the United States. The paper
also contained, in connection with this item of news, a photograph which
might, by a stretch of the imagination, have been taken to resemble
Nelson himself.

Mr. Felix, who was a German gentleman of French sympathies, married to
an American lady, had recently returned to America after a ten years'
sojourn in Europe. He had had an extensive commercial career, was
possessed of a considerable fortune, and had at length determined to
settle in New York, where he could invest his money to advantage and at
the same time conduct a conservative and harmonious business in musical
instruments. Like the Teutons of old, dwelling among the forests of the
Elbe, Mr. Felix knew the fascination of games of chance and he had heard
the merry song of the wheel at both Hambourg and Monte Carlo. In Europe
the pleasures of the gaming table had been comparatively inexpensive,
but in New York for some unknown reason the fickle goddess had not
favored him and he had lost upward of $51,000. "Zu viel!" as he himself
expressed it. Being of a philosophic disposition, however, he had
pocketed his losses and contented himself with the consoling thought
that, whereas he might have lost all, he had in fact lost only a part.
It might well have been that had not The Tempter appeared in the person
of his afternoon visitor, he would ha