that showed a row of faultless teeth beneath his black
moustache, decidedly foreign.

Kennedy played and lost, and lost again; then he won, but in the main he
lost. After one particularly large loss I felt his arm on mine, drawing
me closely to him. DeLong had taken a sort of grim pleasure in the fact
that Kennedy, too, was losing. I found that Craig had paused in his play
at a moment when DeLong had staked a large sum that a number below "18"
would turn up--for five plays the numbers had been between "18" and
"36." Curious to see what Craig was doing, I looked cautiously down
between us. All eyes were fixed on the wheel. Kennedy was holding an
ordinary compass in the crooked-up palm of his hand. The needle pointed
at me, as I happened to be standing north of it.

The wheel spun. Suddenly the needle swung around to a point between
the north and south poles, quivered a moment, and came to rest in that
position. Then it swung back to the north.

It was some seconds before I realised the significance of it. It had
pointed at the table--and DeLong had lost again. There was some electric
attachment at work.

Kennedy and I exchanged glances, and he shoved the compass into my hand
quickly. "You watch it, Walter, while I play," he whispered.

Carefully concealing it, as he had done, yet holding it as close to the
table as I dared I tried to follow two things at once without betraying
myself. As near as I could make out, something happened at every play. I
would not go so far as to assert that whenever the larger stakes were on
a certain number the needle pointed to the opposite side of the wheel,
for it was impossible to be at all accurate about it. Once I noticed the
needle did not move at all, and he won. But at the next play he staked
what I knew must be the remainder of his winnings on what seemed a
very good chance. Even before the wheel was revolved and the ball set
rolling, the needle swung about, and when the platinum ball came to rest
Kennedy rose from the table, a loser.

"By George though," exclaimed DeLong, grasping his hand. "I take it all
back. You are a good loser, sir. I wish I could take it as well as you
do. But then, I'm in too deeply. There are too many 'markers' with the
house up against me."

Senator Danfield had just come in to see how things were going. He was
a sleek, fat man, and it was amazing to see with what deference his
victims treated him. He affected not to have heard what DeLong said, b