ooked out of his little nest, and Cranley wrote the names of the
companions he introduced in a book which was kept for that purpose.

"Now you are free of the Cockpit for the night," he said, genially.
"It's a livelier place, in the small hours, than that classical Olympic
we've just left."

They went upstairs, passing the doors of one or two rooms, lit up but
empty, except for two or three men who were sleeping in uncomfortable
attitudes on sofas. The whole of the breadth of the first floor, all the
drawing-room of the house before it became a club, had been turned into
a card-room, from which brilliant lights, voices, and a heavy odor of
tobacco and alcohol poured out when the door was opened. A long green
baize-covered table, of very light wood, ran down the centre of the
room, while refreshments stood on smaller tables, and a servant out of
livery sat, half-asleep, behind a great desk in the remotest corner.
There were several empty chairs round the green baize-covered table, at
which some twenty men were sitting, with money before them; while one,
in the middle, dealt out the cards on a broad flap of smooth black
leather let into the baize. Every now and then he threw the cards he had
been dealing into a kind of well in the table, and after every deal he
raked up his winnings with a rake, or distributed gold and counters
to the winners, as mechanically as if he had been a croupier at Monte
Carlo. The players, who were all in evening dress, had scarcely looked
up when the strangers entered the room.

"Brought some recruits, Cranley?" asked the Banker, adding, as he looked
at his hand, "_J'en donne!_" and becoming absorbed in his game again.

"The game you do not understand?" said Cranley to one of his recruits.

"Not quite," said the lad, shaking his head.

"All right; I will soon show you all about it; and I wouldn't play, if
I were you, till you _know_ all about it. Perhaps, after you know _all_
about it, you'll think it wiser not to play at all At least, you might
well think so abroad, where very fishy things are often done. Here it's
all right, of course."

"Is baccarat a game you can be cheated at, then--I mean, when people are
inclined to cheat?"

"Cheat! Oh, rather! There are about a dozen ways of cheating at
baccarat."

The other young men from Maitland's party gathered round their mentor,
who continued his instructions in a low voice, and from a distance whence
the play could be watched, while the