could have drawn them
into even a momentary comradeship, if it had not been for the suspicion
his father's story had inspired in him. Frankly, he was there because he
suspected the man, because he desired to watch him, because, if he found
the chance, he was willing to set him in the dock. To smoke his tobacco
and drink his liquor in those circumstances had undoubtedly an air of
treachery. In a while he hardened himself, and closed his ears to all
casuist pleadings, whether for or against the course he had adopted. He
would clear his father if he could, and if there were any mere hope of
doing it, he would watch this fellow as a cat watches a mouse, and would
go on doing it until both of them were gray.

'By the way,' said Barter innocently, 'do you never take a hand at----'

His supple fingers supplied the hiatus, dealing out an imaginary pack of
cards with the flourishing dexterity native to them.

'That's what I'm here for, is it?' thought Philip in his own mind. 'We
shall see.' He said aloud, 'Sometimes,' in an indifferent tone.

'There's nothing worth seeing anywhere to-night,' said young Barter.
'Suppose we try a hand. What do you say to a game at Napoleon?'

Philip consented, and his host produced two packs of cards from the
business safe.

They fixed upon the points and they began to play. The points were not
those for which Mr. Barter really cared to play; for he was one of those
people who find no joy in cards unless they risk more than they can
afford to lose. But little fish are sweet, and he thought he had
secured a greenhorn. As it happened, the greenhorn, though he was
but eight-and-twenty, had travelled the world all over, and had
found himself compelled to survey mankind from China to Peru. He
was, moreover, one of those men who like to know things, and those
quietly-observant eyes of his had taken note of the proceedings of a
hundred scoundrels in whose hands the redoubtable Steinberg himself
would have had but poor chances. The Greek had been Philip's standing
joy, the dish best spiced to suit his intellectual palate. He had
delighted over him aboard ship, on the monstrous dreary railway journey
between Atlantic and Pacific, in the little towns which form the centre
of scores of Texan ranches, in hells at the Cape and in California, in
the free ports of China, and on the borders of the Bosphorus. In point
of fact he was by experience as little fitted to be played upon by a
gentleman of young Mr