elf that I am right
before I let Mr. Cranley go?"

One or two men passed the cards, as they had seen the Banker do, over
the spilt soda water.

"It's a clear case," they said. "Leave him alone."

Barton slackened his grip of Cranley's hands, and for some seconds they
lay as if paralyzed on the table before him, white and cold, with livid
circles round the wrists. The man's face was deadly pale, and wet
with perspiration. He put out a trembling hand to the glass of
brandy-and-water that stood beside him; the class rattled against his
teeth as he drained all the contents at a gulp.

"You shall hear from me," he grumbled, and, with an inarticulate
muttering of threats he made his way, stumbling and catching at chairs,
to the door. When he had got outside, he leaned against the wall, like
a drunken man, and then shambled across the landing into a reading-room.
It was empty, and Cranley fell into a large easy-chair, where he lay
crumpled up, rather than sat, for perhaps ten minutes, holding his hand
against his heart.

"They talk about having the courage of one's opinions. Confound it! Why
haven't I the nerve for my character? Hang this heart of mine! Will it
never stop thumping?"

He sat up and looked about him, then rose and walked toward the table;
but his head began to swim, and his eyes to darken; so he fell back
again in his seat, feeling drowsy and beaten. Mechanically he began
to move the hand that hung over the arm of his low chair, and it
encountered a newspaper which had fallen on the floor. He lifted it
automatically and without thought: it was the _Times_. Perhaps to try
his eyes, and see if they served him again after his collapse, he ran
them down the columns of the advertisements.

Suddenly something caught his attention; his whole lax figure grew
braced again as he read a passage steadily through more than twice or
thrice. When he had quite mastered this, he threw down the paper and
gave a low whistle.

"So the old boy's dead," he reflected; "and that drunken tattooed ass
and his daughter are to come in for the money and the mines! They'll be
clever that find him, and I shan't give them his address! What luck some
men have!"

Here he fell into deep thought, his brows and lips working eagerly.

"I'll do it," he said at last, cutting the advertisement out of the
paper with a penknife. "It isn't often a man has a chance to _star_ in
this game of existence. I've lost all my own social Lives: one in