eded supply.

The frequency with which Ellis had spent his evenings abroad made him
acquainted with many phases of city life hidden from ordinary
observers. Idle curiosity had more than once led him to visit certain
gambling-houses on a mere tour of observation; and, during these
visits, he had each time been tempted to try a game or two, in which
cases little had been lost or won. The motive for winning did not then
exist in tempting strength; and, besides, Ellis was naturally a
cautious man. Now, however, the motive did exist.

"Yes, I do play well," said he, mentally answering the remembered
compliment of Carlton, "and but for your stealing away my brains with
liquor, you would have found me a different kind of antagonist."

Ellis had fifty dollars in his pocket. This sum was the amount of the
day's sales of goods in his store. Instead of leaving the money in his
fire-closet, he had taken it with him, a sort of dim idea being in his
mind that, possibly, it might be wanted for some such purpose as now
contemplated. So he was all prepared for a trial of his skill; and the
trial was made. To one of the haunts of iniquity before visited in mere
reprehensible curiosity, he now repaired with the deliberate purpose of
winning money to make up for losses already sustained, and to provide
for the next day's payments. He went in with fifty dollars in his
pocket-book; at twelve o'clock he left the place perfectly sober, and
the winner of three hundred dollars. Though often urged to drink, he
had, knowing his weakness, firmly declined in every instance.

Cara, he found, as usual on returning home late at night, asleep. He
sought his pillow without disturbing her, and lay for a long time with
his thoughts busy among golden fancies. In a few hours he had won three
hundred dollars, and that from a player of no common skill.

"Yes, yes, Carlton said true. I play well." Over and over did Ellis
repeat this, as he lay with his mind too much excited for sleep.

Wearied nature yielded at last. His dreams repeated the incidents of
the evening, and reconstructed them into new and varied forms. When he
awoke, at day-dawn, from his restless slumber, it took but a short time
for his thoughts to arrange themselves into a purpose, and that purpose
was to seek out Carlton as the first business of the day, and win back
the evidence of debt that he had against him.

The meeting of Ellis and his wife at the breakfast-table had less of
coldne