raising his eyes he could have
seen. But Donnegan was staring down at the floor. Even his voice was a
weak murmur.

"What a party! What a party he's had!" thought Joe Rix, and after all,
there was cause for a celebration. Had not the little man in almost one
stroke won the heart of the prettiest girl in The Corner, and also did
he not probably have a working share in the richest of the diggings?

"I'm Joe Rix," he said.

"Joe Rix?" murmured Donnegan softly. "Then you're one of Lord Nick's
men?"

"I was," said Joe Rix, "sort of attached to him, maybe."

Perhaps this pointed remark won the interest of Donnegan. He raised his
eyes, and Joe Rix beheld the most unhappy face he had ever seen. "A bad
hangover," he decided, "and that makes it bad for me!"

"Come in," said Donnegan in the same monotonous, lifeless voice.

Big George reluctantly, it seemed, withdrew to one side, and Rix was
instantly in the room and drawing out a chair so that he could face
Donnegan.

"I was," he proceeded "sort of tied up with Lord Nick. But"--and here he
winked broadly--"it ain't much of a secret that Nick ain't altogether a
lord any more. Nope. Seems he turned out sort of common, they say."

"What fool," murmured Donnegan, "has told you that? What ass had told
you that Lord Nick is a common sort?"

It shocked Joe Rix, but being a diplomat he avoided friction by changing
his tactics.

"Between you and me," he said calmly enough, "I took what I heard with a
grain of salt. There's something about Nick that ain't common, no matter
what they say. Besides, they's some men that nobody but a fool would
stand up to. It ain't hardly a shame for a man to back down from 'em."

He pointed this remark with a nod to Donnegan.

"I'll give you a bit of free information," said the little man, with his
weary eyes lighted a little. "There's no man on the face of the earth
who could make Lord Nick back down."

Once more Joe Rix was shocked to the verge of gaping, but again he
exercised a power of marvelous self control "About that," he remarked
as pointedly as before, "I got my doubts. Because there's some things
that any gent with sense will always clear away from. Maybe not one
man--but say a bunch of all standin' together."

Donnegan leaned back in his chair and waited. Both of his hands remained
drooping from the edge of the table, and the tired eyes drifted slowly
across the face of Joe Rix.

It was obviously not the aftereffects of liquor