lawyer on Banneker's right.

"Oh, yes; hypnotism too," said Ely Ives briskly, after twenty minutes of
legerdemain. "Child's play."

"Now, who suggested hypnotism?" murmured Stecklin in his limpid and
confidential undertone, close to Banneker's ear. "You? I? No! No one,
_I_ think."

So Banneker thought, and was the more interested in Ives's procedure.
Though the drinking had been heavy at his end of the table, he seemed
quite unaffected, was now tripping from man to man, peering into the
eyes of each, "to find an appropriate subject," as he said. Delavan Eyre
roused himself out of a semi-torpor as the wiry little prowler stared
down at him.

"What's the special idea?" he demanded.

"Just a bit of mesmerism," explained the other. "I'll try you for a
subject. If you'll stand up, feet apart, eyes closed, I'll hypnotize you
so that you'll fall over at a movement."

"You can't do it," retorted Eyre.

"For a bet," Ives came back.

"A hundred?"

"Double it if you like."

"You're on." Eyre, slowly swallowing the last of a brandy-and-soda,
rose, reaching into his pocket.

"Not necessary, between gentlemen," said Ely Ives with a gesture just a
little too suave.

"Ah, yes," muttered the lawyer at Banneker's side. "Between gentlemen.
Eck-xactly."

Pursuant to instructions, Eyre stood with his feet a few inches apart
and his eyes closed. "At the word, you bring your heels together. Click!
And you keep your balance. If you can. For the two hundred. Any one else
want in?... No?... Ready, Mr. Eyre. Now! _Hep_!"

The heels clicked, but with a stuttering, weak impact. Eyre, bulky and
powerful, staggered, toppled to the left.

"Hold up there!" His neighbor propped him, and was clutched in his
grasp.

"Hands off!" said Eyre thickly. "Sorry, Banks! Let me try that again.
Oh, the bet's yours, Mr. Ives," he added, as that keen gambler began to
enter a protest. "Send you a check in the morning--if that'll be all
right."

Herbert Cressey, hand in pocket, was at his side instantly. "Pay him
now, Del," he said in a tone which did not conceal his contemptuous
estimate of Ives. "Here's money, if you haven't it."

"No; no! A check will be _quite_ all right," protested Ives. "At your
convenience."

Others gathered about, curious and interested. Banneker, puzzled by a
vague suspicion which he sought to formulate, was aware of a low runnel
of commentary at his ear.

"Very curious. Shrewd; yes. A clever fellow.... Sad, too."