ing to monstrous giants and
dwindling to pigmies according as they approached or retired from the
lamp in the room.

There were three men in that room booted as for a journey. Their dress
might have misled one into the belief that they were merchants, but
their manner of wearing it proclaimed them soldiers. Of the three, one,
a short, spare man, sat at the table with his head bent over a slip of
paper. His peruke was pushed back from his forehead and showed that the
hair about his temples was grey. He had a square face of some strength,
and thoughtful eyes.

The second of the three stood by the window. He was, perhaps, a few
years younger, thirty-six an observer might have guessed to the other's
forty, and his face revealed a character quite different. His features
were sharp, his eyes quick; if prudence was the predominating quality of
the first, resource took its place in the second. While the first man
sat patiently at the table, this one stood impatiently at the window.
Now he lifted the blind, now he dropped it again.

The third sat in front of the fire with his face upturned to the
ceiling. He was a tall, big man with mighty legs which sprawled one on
each side of the hearth. He was the youngest of the three by five years,
but his forehead at this moment was so creased, his mouth so pursed up,
his cheeks so wrinkled, he had the look of sixty years. He puffed and
breathed very heavily; once or twice he sighed, and at each sigh his
chair creaked under him. Major O'Toole of Dillon's regiment was
thinking.

"Gaydon," said he, suddenly.

The man at the table looked up quickly.

"Misset."

The man at the window turned impatiently.

"I have an idea."

Misset shrugged his shoulders.

Gaydon said, "Let us hear it."

O'Toole drew himself up; his chair no longer creaked, it groaned and
cracked.

"It is a lottery," said he, "and we have made our fortunes. We three are
the winners, and so our names are not crossed out."

"But I have put no money in a lottery," objected Gaydon.

"Nor I," said Misset.

"And where should I find money either?" said O'Toole. "But Charles Wogan
has borrowed it for us and paid it in, and so we're all rich men.
What'll I buy with it?"

Misset paced the room.

"The paper came four days ago?" he said.

"Yes, in the morning."

"Five days, then," and he stood listening. Then he ran to the window and
opened it. Gaydon followed him and drew up the blind. Both men listened
and wer