ut as the sturdy figure inserted a
latch-key in the door and opened it with one hand while supporting his
companion with the other arm, the incident was not one to excite
comment. Just inside the door the inebriated man tried to raise a
disturbance, which was promptly squelched by the sturdy gentleman, who
held his charge firmly in a bearlike grip while Mr. Teller and Mr.
Wallingford passed around them at the foot of the stairs, casting
smiling glances down at the face of the perpetually-worried landlady,
who had come to the parlor door to wonder what she ought to do about
it.

In the second floor back room Mr. Phelps and Mr. Badger already
awaited them. Mr. Badger's greeting to Larry was the ordinary
greeting of one man who had seen the other within the hour; his
greeting to Mr. Wallingford was most cordial and accompanied by the
merest shade of a wink. Mr. Phelps, on the other hand, was most grim.
While not denying the semblance of courtesy one gentleman should
bestow upon another, he nevertheless gave Mr. Wallingford distinctly
to understand by his bearing that he was out for Mr. Wallingford's
financial blood, and after the coldest of greetings he asked gruffly:

"Did you bring cards?"

"One dollar's worth," said Wallingford, tossing four packs upon the
table. "Ordinary drug-store cards, bought at the corner."

"You see them bought, Larry?" inquired Phelps.

"They're all right, Phelps," Mr. Teller assured him.

"Good," said Mr. Phelps. "Then we might just as well get to work right
away," and from his pocket he drew a fat wallet out of which he
counted five thousand dollars, mostly in bills of large denomination.

In the chair at the opposite side of the little table Wallingford sat
down with equal grimness, and produced an equal amount of money in
similar denominations.

"I don't suppose we need chips," said Phelps. "The game may not last
over a couple of deals. Make it table stakes, loser of each hand to
deal the next one."

They opened a pack of cards and cut for the deal, which fell to
Wallingford, and they began with a mutual five-dollar ante. Upon the
turn card of the first deal each placed another five. Upon the third
card, Phelps, being high, shoved forward a five-dollar bill, which
Wallingford promptly raised with fifty. Scarcely glancing at his
hole-card, Phelps let him take the pot, and it became Phelps' deal.

It was a peculiar game, in that Phelps kept the deal from then on,
betting mildly un