"Seven thousand
eight hundred and forty-two," he announced with a grin, as he put back
the pad. "That's what he's sold himself for, up to this time."

"Too much in a way and not enough in another way," replied John Mark.
"Listen, if he comes back, which I doubt, keep him here. Get him away
from Ronicky--dope him--dope them both. In any case, if he comes back
here, don't let him get away. You understand?"

"Nope, but I don't need to understand. I'll do it."

John Mark nodded and turned toward the door.

Chapter Eighteen

_The Spider's Web_

Only the select attended the meetings at Fernand's. It was doubly hard
to choose them. They had to have enough money to afford high play, and
they also had to lose without a murmur. It made it extremely difficult
to build up a clientele, but Fernand was equal to the task. He seemed to
smell out the character of a man or woman, to know at once how much iron
was in their souls. And, following the course of an evening's play,
Fernand knew the exact moment at which a man had had enough. It was
never twice the same for the same man. A rich fellow, who lost twenty
thousand one day and laughed at it, might groan and curse if he lost
twenty hundred a week later.

It was Fernand's desire to keep those groans and curses from being heard
in his gaming house. He extracted wallets painlessly, so to speak.

He was never crooked; and yet he would not have a dealer in his employ
unless the fellow knew every good trick of running up the deck. The
reason was that, while Fernand never cheated in order to take money away
from his customers, he very, very frequently had his men cheat in order
to give money away.

This sounds like a mad procedure for the proprietor of a gaming house,
but there were profound reasons beneath it. For one of the maxims of
Fernand--and, like every gambler, he had many of them--was that the best
way to make a man lose money is first of all to make him win it.

Such was Monsieur Frederic Fernand. And, if many compared him to
Falstaff, and many pitied the merry, fat old man for having fallen into
so hard a profession, yet there were a few who called him a bloated
spider, holding his victims, with invisible cords, and bleeding them
slowly to death.

To help him he had selected two men, both young, both shrewd, both iron
in will and nerve and courage, both apparently equally expert with the
cards, and both just as equally capable of pleasing his clients. One was