d you now, remember! No rebate on this. How much?"
He pulled out a fat rubber-banded roll and began stripping bills from
the outside.

"A thousand--all you want!" shouted Mitchell, in high glee. "Getting
on, Thompson?"

Steve, still laughing, shook his head. "I'll be stakeholder," he said
in a choking voice.

The black-eyed man shot a malevolent glance at him as they put up the
money in his hands. For he had a supernumerary jack of hearts, neatly
palmed, to turn up if Steve "bit." This quickly disappeared, however,
or rather did not appear at all. With an expectant smile the artist
turned up from the top of the deck the five of clubs. He looked at it
in stupefied amazement, which, if not real, was well invented.

Mitchell roared and pounded the suitcase. "Oh, _Loring_!" he gasped,
drying his eyes. "You _will_ teach an old dog new tricks, will you?
My stars, but you're easy!" Retook the cash from the grinning
stakeholder, counted out Loring's half and pushed it over to that much
discomfited gentleman. "I don't want to rob you!" he quoted mockingly.
"But if I had time I'd have kept you on the anxious seat a while.
There's your jack of hearts, under your feet!"

"Why, you fat, old swindler! You white-headed outrage--you--you Foxy
Grandpa!" cried Loring in blushing chagrin--not wholly dissembled,
either. "I ought to make you eat it. Come, have a drink." He led the
way, the others following with gibe and jeer.

"Why didn't you bet with him, Thompson?" demanded Mitchell, still
shaking with Homeric laughter. "Say, I should have kept his money, by
good rights. 'Twould have been the joke of the season!"

Steve raised his glass. "I would," he replied innocently, "but I knew
you'd give it back, anyhow, so what's the use--among friends? If it
had been a stranger, now, I'd 'a' hopped on the band-wagon too quick.
I like a little easy money as well as anybody. Well, here's to our
next meeting!"

"Hello!" said Mitchell. "Here's the tunnel and Hoboken. Let's go back
to our belongings. Now, Thompson, business first and pleasure after,
you know. You take the Barclay Street boat. If I don't get time to see
you before noon to-morrow you run up to the office and see me. It's
only a block from the Cornucopia. I've got to go the other way, and
so does Loring--at least his studio's uptown. I say, Loring, tell Mr.
Thompson what's doing at the theatres. That's in your line."

Loring named several plays, recommending one as particularly