hed out triumphantly with a piece of
dog-eared, yellow cardboard. "Wot's your number?" asked Pinny.

"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven," Charles-Norton read.

Pinny was perusing the clipping in his hand. "Wot did you say," he piped
suddenly; "_wot's_ the number?"

"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven," repeated
Charles-Norton.

The pale youth seemed to collapse. His chin went forward on his green
tie, his back slid down the back of his chair, his hands dropped limp
upon the table. "Well, I'll be eternally dod-gum-good-blasted," he said
weakly.

"You've done it," he continued, solemnly; "you've gone and done it." He
looked at his clipping again. "Lemme see your ticket," he said. He placed
the ticket and the clipping side by side; his stubby, black-fringed
finger slid from one to the other.

"You've done it, partner," he repeated, with the same funereal intoning.
"Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven! And I've held that
ticket in my hands, right in these hands! Eight hundred dollars.--Nineteen
thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven wins eight hundred dollars"--his
tongue lingered, as if it tasted it, upon each opulent number--"Eight
hundred dollars; that's what you win. And all owing to me, too."

Charles-Norton had forgotten his ham-and-eggs. He took the ticket and the
clipping from Pinny's nerveless fingers and compared them. 19897! That
was right. He had won eight hundred dollars. "Where do you cash in?" he
exclaimed with a sudden ferocity.

"I'll take you to it," murmured Pinny, still in a daze. "Gee--and I had
that ticket in this here pair of hands. I'll take yuh to it. It's down
town. No trouble getting the money. You'll treat on it, eh? You'll treat,
won't yuh?"

His sharp face was almost beneath Charles-Norton's chin; his pale
eyes rolled upward wistfully. A sudden gust of pity went through
Charles-Norton. "Surely," he said. "Better than that; we'll share."
He paused, coughed. A wave of prudence was modifying his impulse--the
prudence that inevitably comes with wealth. "I'll give you--I'll give
you twenty-five dollars!" he announced.

"Come on!" said Pinny; "come on--we're losing time, eating in this joint.
Say, you'll have all you want to eat now, won't yuh--oysters and wine and
grape-fruit and everything. And girls, eh? Autos and wine and girls--Gee!"
And his eyes remained fixed on the vision of splendor, of the splendor of
Charles-Norton, missed so narro