"Yes, last night. Three times did I imagine that I was playing roulette, and that after a certain number--whether thirteen or twenty-three I was uncertain--turned up, there was a run of seventeen on the red. The funny thing is that I had an impression that the number was twenty-three, but with a doubt that it might be thirteen. I remember, during a sub-conscious state in the third dream, resolving to listen and look more carefully to discover the exact number. But again things got blurred. The only clear point was that the run of seventeen on the red commenced at once." "Well?" "Well, I took my remaining cash, went to the Casino, became a bit impatient when neither number turned up for quite a while, and when thirteen appeared I backed the red. But four times it was the black that won." "So I saw." "Have you been keeping guard over me?" "Yes, in a sort of way." "You are a queer chap. I can't help saying that I am obliged to you. But it won't do any good. I am absolutely dead broke." "Now listen to me. I will pay your fare back to London and give you something to live on until I return a week hence. Then you must come to see me, and I will help you into some sort of situation. But you must once and for all abandon this notion of suicide." "What about my debts?" "Confound your debts. Tell people to wait until you are able to pay them." "And--and the girl?" "If she is worth having she will give you a chance of making a living sufficient to enable you to marry her. She is of age, I suppose, and can marry any one she likes." Mensmore puffed his cigarette in silence for fully a minute. Then he said: "You are a very decent sort, Mr.--" "Bruce--Claude Bruce is my name." "Well, Mr. Bruce, you propose to hand me £10 for my railway fare, and, say, £5 for my existence, until we meet again in London, in exchange for which you purchase the rights in my life indefinitely, accidents and reasonable wear and tear excepted." "Exactly!" "Make it £20, with five louis down, and I accept." "Why the stipulation?" "I want to back my dream. The number is twenty-three. It evidently was not thirteen. I want to see that thing through. I will back the red after twenty-three turns up, and if I lose I shall be quite satisfied." "What if I refuse?" "Then I don't care a bit what happens during the next seven days. After that, _au revoir_, should we happen to meet across the divide. Please make up your mind quickly. That run on the red may come and go while we are sitting here." Bruce opened his pocket-book. "Here," he said with a smile, "I will give you four hundred francs. You will reach the maximum more quickly if you are right." Mensmore's face lit up with excitement. "By Jove, you are a brick," he said. "So you really trust me?" "Yes." "Then give me back my revolver." Without a word, Bruce handed him the weapon. Mensmore extracted the cartridges and threw them into a clump of shrubs.