e, he never
played again.

It was in the Opera House that it occurred, and for an hour it had seemed
that he could not place his money on a card without making the card a
winner. In the lull at the end of a deal, while the game-keeper was
shuffling the deck, Nick Inwood the owner of the game, remarked, apropos
of nothing:-

"I say, Pentfield, I see that partner of yours has been cutting up monkey-
shines on the outside."

"Trust Corry to have a good time," Pentfield had answered; "especially
when he has earned it."

"Every man to his taste," Nick Inwood laughed; "but I should scarcely
call getting married a good time."

"Corry married!" Pentfield cried, incredulous and yet surprised out of
himself for the moment.

"Sure," Inwood said. "I saw it in the 'Frisco paper that came in over
the ice this morning."

"Well, and who's the girl?" Pentfield demanded, somewhat with the air of
patient fortitude with which one takes the bait of a catch and is aware
at the time of the large laugh bound to follow at his expense.

Nick Inwood pulled the newspaper from his pocket and began looking it
over, saying:-

"I haven't a remarkable memory for names, but it seems to me it's
something like Mabel--Mabel--oh yes, here it--'Mabel Holmes, daughter of
Judge Holmes,'--whoever he is."

Lawrence Pentfield never turned a hair, though he wondered how any man in
the North could know her name. He glanced coolly from face to face to
note any vagrant signs of the game that was being played upon him, but
beyond a healthy curiosity the faces betrayed nothing. Then he turned to
the gambler and said in cold, even tones:-

"Inwood, I've got an even five hundred here that says the print of what
you have just said is not in that paper."

The gambler looked at him in quizzical surprise. "Go 'way, child. I
don't want your money."

"I thought so," Pentfield sneered, returning to the game and laying a
couple of bets.

Nick Inwood's face flushed, and, as though doubting his senses, he ran
careful eyes over the print of a quarter of a column. Then be turned on
Lawrence Pentfield.

"Look here, Pentfield," he said, in a quiet, nervous manner; "I can't
allow that, you know."

"Allow what?" Pentfield demanded brutally.

"You implied that I lied."

"Nothing of the sort," came the reply. "I merely implied that you were
trying to be clumsily witty."

"Make your bets, gentlemen," the dealer protested.

"But I tell you it's true," Ni