e sure, he will. Cinque ace!
well, _curse_ it! the same throw over again! 'Tis too bad. I missed
taking you last time, with that stupid blot you've covered--and now, by
Jove, it ruins me. There's no playing when fellows are getting up every
minute to gape after doctors' coaches, and leaving the door open--hang
it, I've lost the game by it--gammoned twice already. 'Tis very
pleasant. I only wish when gentlemen interrupt play, they'd be good
enough to pay the bets.'

It was not much, about five shillings altogether, and little Puddock had
not often a run of luck.

'If you'd like to win it back, Captain Cluffe, I'll give you a chance,'
said O'Flaherty, who was tolerably sober. 'I'll lay you an even guinea
Sturk's dead before nine to-morrow morning; and two to one he's dead
before this time to-morrow night.'

'I thank you--no, Sir--two doctors over him, and his head in two
pieces--you're very obliging, lieutenant, but I'll choose a likelier
wager,' said Cluffe.

Dangerfield, who was overlooking the party, with his back to the fire,
appeared displeased at their levity--shook his head, and was on the
point of speaking one of those polite but cynical reproofs, whose irony,
cold and intangible, intimidated the less potent spirits of the
club-room. But he dismissed it with a little shrug. And a minute after,
Major O'Neill and Arthur Slowe became aware that Dangerfield had glided
behind them, and was looking serenely, like themselves, at the Dublin
doctor's carriage and smoking team. The light from Sturk's bed-room
window, and the red glare of the footman's torch, made two little
trembling reflections in the silver spectacles as he stood in the shade,
peering movelessly over their shoulders.

''Tis a sorry business, gentlemen,' he said in a stern, subdued tone.
'Seven children and a widow. He's not dead yet, though: whatever Toole
might do, the Dublin doctor would not stay with a dead man; time's
precious. I can't describe how I pity that poor soul, his wife--what's
to become of her and her helpless brood I know not.'

Slowe grunted a dismal assent, and the major, with a dolorous gaze, blew
a thin stream of tobacco-smoke into the night air, which floated off
like the ghost of a sigh towards the glimmering window of Sturk's
bed-room. So they all grew silent. It seemed they had no more to say,
and that, in their minds, the dark curtain had come down upon the drama
of which the 'noble Barney,' as poor Mrs. Sturk called him, w