nswered.

"I don't like your tone!" Carter flared out.

"Oh, go to the devil, Johnnie! Shall we all have a drink?"

On the Friday evening of that week, Condy set himself to his work at
his accustomed hour. But he had had a hard day on the "Times,"
Supplement, and his brain, like an overdriven horse, refused to work.
In half an hour he had not written a paragraph.

"I thought it would be better, in the end, to loaf for one evening," he
explained to Blix, some twenty minutes later, as they settled
themselves in the little dining-room. "I can go at it better
to-morrow. See how you like this last chapter."

Blix was enthusiastic over "In Defiance of Authority." Condy had told
her the outline of the story, and had read to her each chapter as he
finished it.

"It's the best thing you have ever done, Condy, and you know it. I
suppose it has faults, but I don't care anything about them. It's the
story itself that's so interesting. After that first chapter of the
boom restaurant and the exiles' club, nobody would want to lay the book
down. You're doing the best work of your life so far, and you stick to
it."

"It's grinding out copy for the Supplement at the same time that takes
all the starch out of me. You've no idea what it means to write all
day, and then sit down and write all evening."

"I WISH you could get off the 'Times,'" said Blix. "You're just giving
the best part of your life to hack work, and NOW it's interfering with
your novel. I know you could do better work on your novel if you
didn't have to work on the 'Times,' couldn't you?"

"Oh, if you come to that, of course I could," he answered. "But they
won't give me a vacation. I was sounding the editor on it day before
yesterday. No; I'll have to manage somehow to swing the two together."

"Well, let's not talk shop now. Condy. You need a rest. Do you want
to play poker?"

They played for upward of an hour that evening, and Condy, as usual,
lost. His ill-luck was positively astonishing. During the last two
months he had played poker with Blix on an average of three or four
evenings in the week, and at the close of every game it was Blix who
had all the chips.

Blix had come to know the game quite as well, if not better, than he.
She could almost invariably tell when Condy held a good hand, but on
her part could assume an air of indifference absolutely inscrutable.

"Cards?" said Condy, picking up the deck after the deal.

"I'll s