r great excitement.

"I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!"
He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his hand
over--and with a careless:

"Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man,
who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in:

"Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And just
to show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred."

He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly at
the newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to his
pocket.

"Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!"

"Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see my
hand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling good
one----"

"I'll bet"--the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from the
leather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto--"I've
got you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back at
you."

"You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. I
ain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as good
as they did."

"I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watch
across the board. Both men examined it.

"Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your word
for it. Stick her up--here's the fifty."

"I've got _four_ aces!" squealed the reporter as he spread them out
face upward. He stared wildly at the other, and his hands made wet
marks where they touched the board.

"No good," remarked his opponent blandly. "Mine's hearts--all in a row,
with the jack at the top." One by one he laid them down--a straight
flush. South Bend stared incredulously at the cards.

"All right, Mr. Stakeholder," laughed the salesman, "pass over the
kale. Just slip out a five for your trouble."

"Just a minute." The voice of the stakeholder was quiet and his lips
smiled. The two across the board bristled aggressively and the plucked
one sniffled.

"Well"--there was an ugly note in the cigar salesman's voice--"a
straight flush beats four aces, don't it?"

"Oh, yes, there is no question as to that. Are these the same cards we
have been using?"

"Of course they are! What do you mean?" asked the dealer.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know. Our friend here has the right to
know that he got a square deal. Count the cards." The look of
apprehension on