ut is this?" inquired Orde.

The dealer held up the three cards face out.

"What kind of an eye have you got, bub?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know. A pretty fair eye. Why?"

"Do you think you could pick out the jack when I throw them out like
this?" asked the dealer.

"Sure! She's that one."

"Well," exclaimed the gambler with a pretence of disgust, "damn if you
didn't! I bet you five dollars you can't do it again."

"Take you!" replied Orde. "Put up your five."

Again Orde was permitted to pick the jack.

"You've got the best eye that's been in this place since I got here,"
claimed the dealer admiringly. "Here, Dennis," said he to his partner,
"try if you can fool this fellow."

Dennis obligingly took the cards, threw them, and lost. By this time
the men, augmented by the idlers not busy with the card games, had drawn
close.

"Sail into 'em, bub," encouraged one.

Whether it was that the gamblers, expert in the reading of a man's mood
and intentions, sensed the fact that Orde might be led to plunge, or
whether, more simply, they were using him as a capper to draw the crowd
into their game, it would be difficult to say, but twice more they
bungled the throw and permitted him to win.

Newmark plucked him at the sleeve.

"You're twenty dollars ahead," he muttered. "Quit it! I never saw
anybody beat this game that much before."

Orde merely shrugged him off with an appearance of growing excitement,
while an HABITUE of the place, probably one of the hired fighters,
growled into Newmark's ear.

"Shut up, you damn dude!" warned this man. "Keep out of what ain't none
of your business."

"What limit do you put on this game, anyway?" Orde leaned forward, his
eyes alight.

The two gamblers spoke swiftly apart.

"How much do you want to bet?" asked one.

"Would you stand for five hundred dollars?" asked Orde.

A dead silence fell on the group. Plainly could be heard the men's
quickened breathing. The shouts and noise from the card parties
blundered through the stillness. Some one tiptoed across and whispered
in the ear of the nearest player. A moment later the chairs at the two
tables scraped back. One of them fell violently to the floor. Their
occupants joined the tense group about the monte game. All the girls
drew near. Only behind the bar the white-aproned bartenders wiped their
glasses with apparent imperturbability, their eyes, however, on their
brass knuckles hanging just beneath the counter, their