arning and a threat in his voice,

"See here, my good fellow; I'm told that you've been going out of your
way and meddling with the policy-dealers. Take my advice, and mind your
own business. If you don't, it will be all day with you. There isn't a
man in town strong enough to fight this thing, so you'd better let it
alone."

And he did let it alone. He had a wife and three little children, and
couldn't afford to lose his place. So he minded his own business, and
let it alone.

Pinky and her friend entered this small third-story back room. Behind a
narrow, unpainted counter, having a desk at one end, stood a middle-aged
man, with dark, restless eyes that rarely looked you in the face. He
wore a thick but rather closely-cut beard and moustache. The police knew
him very well; so did the criminal lawyers, when he happened to come in
their way; so did the officials of two or three State prisons in which
he had served out partial sentences. He was too valuable to political
"rings" and associations antagonistic to moral and social well-being
to be left idle in the cell of a penitentiary for the whole term of a
commitment. Politicians have great influence, and governors are human.

On the walls of the room were pasted a few pictures cut from the
illustrated papers, some of them portraits of leading politicians, and
some of them portraits of noted pugilists and sporting-men. The picture
of a certain judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the fraternity
of criminals by his severe sentences, was turned upside down. There was
neither table nor chair in the room.

The woman in black had passed in just before the girls, and was waiting
her turn to examine the drawn numbers. She had not tasted food since the
day before, having ventured her only dime on a policy, and was feeling
strangely faint and bewildered. She did not have to wait long. It was
the old story. Her combination had not come out, and she was starving.
As she moved back toward the door she staggered a little. Pinky, who had
become curious about her, noticed this, and watched her as she went out.

"It's about up with the old lady, I guess," she said to her companion,
with an unfeeling laugh.

And she was right. On the next morning the poor old woman was found dead
in her room, and those who prepared her for burial said that she
was wasted to a skeleton. She had, in fact, starved herself in her
infatuation, spending day after day in policies what she should have