my property back, and I can only get it back from him.
You fellows are no use to me--not if I were winning all along the line."

"Look here, Moore," said the young man, in a more serious tone, "you may
say it's none of my business; but the way you and that fellow Miles have
been going on is perfectly awful. If the committee should hear about it,
there will be a row, and no mistake!"

"My dear boy," Lionel protested, as he pushed the unnecessary bottle to
his neighbor, "the committee have nothing to do with understandings that
are settled outside the club. You don't see Miles or me handing checks
for L200 or L300 across the table. How can the committee expel you for
holding up three fingers or nodding your head?"

"Well, then, you'll excuse me saying it, but he's a young ass, to gamble
in that fashion," Johnny remarked, bluntly. "What fun does he get out of
it? And it's quite a new thing with him--that's the odd business. I know
a man who was at Merton with him; and certainly Miles got into a devil
of a scrape--which cut short his career there; but it had nothing to do
with gambling. He never was that way inclined at all; it's a new
development, since he joined this club. Well, I suppose he can do what
he likes. The heir to a baronetcy and such a place as Petmansworth can
get just as much as he wants from the Jews."

"My good man, he doesn't need to go to the Jews," said Lionel, with grim
irony.

"Where does he get all that money from? Do you think his father is fool
enough to encourage him in such extravagance? I should hope not! At the
same time I wish I had a father tarred with something of that same
brush."

"Where does he get all the money from? So far he has got it from me,"
Lionel said, with a bit of a shrug. "He doesn't need to go to his
father, or to the Jews either, when he can plunder me. And such a run of
luck as he has had is simply astounding--"

"It isn't luck at all," the other interrupted. "It's your play. You play
too bold a game--too bold when you know he is going to play a bolder.
Twice running he caught you last night bluffing on no hand at all; and I
don't know what fabulous stakes were up--with your nods and signs. It's
no use your trying to bluff that fellow. He won't be bluffed."

"The thing is as broad as it's long, man," Lionel said, impatiently. "If
he is determined to see me every time, he must be caught when I have a
good hand--it stands to reason. The only thing is that my luck has