pencil--a sure indication of a "big game."

"Limit?" asked the doctor.

Lablache shrugged his shoulders, affectionately shuffling the cards the
while. He kept his eyes averted.

"What do the others say?"

There was a challenge in Lablache's tone. Bunning-Ford flushed slightly
at the cheek-bones. That peculiar pursing was at his lips.

"Anything goes with me. The higher the game the greater the excitement,"
he said, shooting a keen glance at the pasty face of the money-lender.

Old John was irritated. His ruddy face gleamed in the light of the lamp.
The nervous twitching of the cheek indicated his frame of mind. Lablache
smiled to himself behind the wood expression of his face.

"Twenty dollars call for fifty. Limit the bet to three thousand
dollars. Is that big enough for you, Lablache? Let us have a regulation
'ante.' No 'straddling.'"

There was a moment's silence. "Poker" John had proposed the biggest game
they had yet played. He would have suggested no limit, but this he knew
would be all in favor of Lablache, whose resources were vast.

John glanced over from the money-lender to the doctor. The doctor and
Bunning-Ford were the most to be considered. Their resources were very
limited. The old man knew that the doctor was one of those careful
players who was not likely to allow himself to suffer by the height of
the stakes. There was no bluffing the doctor. "Lord" Bill was able to
take care of himself.

"That's good enough for me," said Bunning-Ford. "Let it go at that."

Outwardly Lablache was indifferent; inwardly he experienced a sense of
supreme satisfaction at the height of the stakes.

The four men relapsed into silence as they cut for the deal. It was an
education in the game to observe each man as he, metaphorically
speaking, donned his mask of impassive reserve. As the game progressed
any one of those four men might have been a graven image as far as the
expression of countenance went. No word was spoken beyond "Raise you so
and so"--"See you that." So keen, so ardent was the game that the stake
might have been one of life and death. No money passed. Just slips of
paper; and yet any one of those fragments represented a small fortune.

The first few hands resulted in but desultory betting. Sums of money
changed hands but there was very little in it. Lablache was the
principal loser. Three "pots" in succession were taken by John
Allandale, but their aggregate did not amount to half the limit. A