appear in the papers next morning.

One night as Mellish cast his eye around his well-filled main room he
noticed a stranger sitting at the roulette table. Mellish had a keen
eye for strangers and in an unobtrusive way generally managed to find
out something about them. A stranger in a gambling room brings in with
him a certain sense of danger to the habitues.

"Who is that boy?" whispered Mellish to his bartender, generally known
as Sotty, an ex-prize fighter and a dangerous man to handle if it came
to trouble. It rarely came to trouble there, but Sotty was, in a
measure, the silent symbol of physical force, backing the well-known
mild morality of Mellish.

"I don't know him," answered Sotty.

"Whom did he come in with?"

"I didn't see him come in. Hadn't noticed him till now."

Mellish looked at the boy for a few minutes. He had the fresh, healthy,
smooth face of a lad from the country, and he seemed strangely out of
place in the heated atmosphere of that room, under the glare of the
gas. Mellish sighed as he looked at him, then he turned to Sotty and
said:

"Just get him away quietly and bring him to the small poker room. I
want to have a few words with him."

Sotty, who had the utmost contempt for the humanitarian feelings of his
boss, said nothing, but a look of disdain swept over his florid
features as he went on his mission. If he had his way, he would not
throw even a sprat out of the net. Many a time he had known Mellish to
persuade a youngster with more money than brains to go home, giving
orders at the double doors that he was not to be admitted again.

The young man rose with a look of something like consternation on his
face and followed Sotty. The thing was done quietly, and all those
around the tables were too much absorbed in the game to pay much
attention.

"Look here, my boy," said Mellish, when they were alone, "who brought
you to this place?"

"I guess," said the lad, with an expression of resentment, "I'm old
enough to go where I like without being brought."

"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Mellish, diplomatically, knowing how
much very young men dislike being accused of youth, "but I like to know
all visitors here. You couldn't get in unless you came with someone
known at the door. Who vouched for you?"

"See here, Mr. Mellish," said the youth angrily, "what are you driving
at? If your doorkeepers don't know their own business why don't you
speak to them about it? Are you going t