Then he turned square
about in his chair again and snapped out: 'Deal, can't you?' Longstreet
saw that the boy's face was red; that his eyes burned malignantly.

'Hello, Barbee,' said the man in the newly opened door. He came fully
into the room and closed the door after him.

'Hello, Courtot,' answered Barbee colourlessly.

With an effort Longstreet had withdrawn his analytic faculties from the
consideration of the recent problem that had been solved for him by the
cards themselves; now he was busied with collecting them, arranging
them and getting ready to shuffle. Among the amused eyes watching him
he was conscious of a pair of eyes that were not simply amused, the
eyes of Jim Courtot. He looked up and took stock of the new-comer,
impelled to something more exhaustive than a superficial interest by
that intangible but potent thing termed personality. This man who had
entered the room in familiar fashion through a back door and a rear
room, was of the magnetic order; were he silent in a gathering of
talking men he must have been none the less a conspicuous figure. And
not because of any unusual saliency of physical attributes; rather for
that emanation of personality which is like electricity--which,
perhaps, is electricity.

He was tall, thin, very dark; his eyes were of beady blackness; he
affected the sombre in garb from black hat and dark shirt to darker
trousers and black boots. His face was clean-shaven; maybe he had just
now been shaving in the rear room. His age might have lain anywhere
between thirty-five and fifty. There are men like Jim Courtot, of dark
visages and impenetrable eyes, thin and sallow men, upon whom the
passing years appear to work all of their havoc early and then be like
vicious stinging things deprived of their stings.

'For God's sake!' spoke up Barbee, querulously and nervously. 'Are you
going to shuffle all the spots off? Come alive, Longstreet.'

Longstreet allowed Barbee to cut and began dealing. Jim Courtot, his
step quick but strangely noiseless, came to the table. His eyes were
for Barbee as he said quietly:

'Just a little game for fun? Any objection if I kick in?'

Barbee frowned. Further, he hesitated--and hesitation played but a
small part in El Joven's make-up. Finally he evaded.

'Where've you been all this long time, Courtot?' he asked sullenly.
'The biggest game of six years was pulled off down in Poco Poco last
week and you wasn't there. I heard a