onversation."

Mr. Phelps, having already "produced to his limit," stayed with
Wallingford while the others went out. First of all, they dropped in
at a quiet pool-room where they were known, and made inquiries about
Whipsaw. They were answered by a laugh, and an offer to "take them on
for all they wanted at their own odds," and, reassured, they
scattered, to raise all the money they could. They returned in the
course of an hour and counted down a sum larger than Wallingford had
thought the four of them could control. He was to find out later that
they had not only converted their bank accounts and all their other
holdings into currency, but had borrowed all their credit would stand
wherever they were known. Wallingford, covering their first five
thousand with one, calmly counted out an amount equal to one-half of
all the rest they had put down, passed it over to Blackie to hold,
then flaunted more money in their faces.

"This is at evens if you can scrape up any more," he offered
sneeringly. "Go soak your jewelry."

Before making that suggestion he had noted the absence of Larry's ring
and of Billy's studded watch-charm. Phelps was the only one who still
wore anything convertible, a loud cravat-pin, an emerald, set with
diamonds.

"Give you two hundred against your pin," said he to Phelps, and the
latter promptly took the bet.

"Are you all in?" asked Wallingford.

They promptly acknowledged that they were "all in."

"All right, then; we'll have a drink and go out to the track. You'll
want to see this race, _because I win_!"

They were naturally contemptuous of this view, even hilariously
contemptuous, and they offered to lend Wallingford money enough, after
the race, "to sneak out of town and hide."

While they were taking the parting drink Blackie Daw slipped into
Wallingford's bedroom for just one moment "to get a handkerchief."
There he found, mopping his brow, a short, thick-set chap known as
Shorty Hampton, a perfectly reliable and discreet betting
commissioner.

"I was just goin' to duck," growled Shorty in a gruff whisper. "I've
got two or three other parties to see. I've been suffocating in this
damned little room for the last hour, waitin'."

"All right. Here's the money," said Blackie, and handed him _half the
stakes which had just been intrusted to his care_. "Spread this in as
many pool-rooms as you can; get it all down on Whipsaw."

"Three ways?" asked Shorty.

"Straight, every cent of i