"Would you mind teaching me the rules?" said the old sport from Ypsilanti. The gambler was growing suspicious of this too, too childlike innocence. He whined: "Say, what's your little game, eh?" but decided to risk the venture. He sat down at a table, and Dr. Temple, bringing along his glass, drew up a chair. The gambler took a pack of cards from his pocket, and shuffled them with a snap that startled Dr. Temple and a dexterity that delighted him. "Go on, it's beautiful to see," he exclaimed. The gambler set the pack down with the one word "Cut!" but since the old man made no effort to comply, the gambler did not insist. He took up the pack again and ran off five cards to each place with a grace that staggered the doctor. Mallory was about to intervene for the protection of the guileless physician when the conductor chanced to saunter in. The gambler, seeing him, snatched Dr. Temple's cards from his hand and slipped the pack into his pocket. "What's the matter now?" Dr. Temple asked, but the newcomer huskily answered: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." The conductor took in the scene at a glance and, stalking up to the table, spoke with the grimness of a sea-captain: "Say, I've got my eye on you. Don't start nothin'." The stranger stared at him wonderingly and demanded: "Why, what you drivin' at?" "You know all right," the conductor growled, and then turned on the befuddled old clergyman, "and you, too." "Me, too?" the preacher gasped. "Yes, you, too," the conductor repeated, shaking an accusing forefinger under his nose. "Your actions have been suspicious from the beginning. We've all been watching you." Dr. Temple was so agitated that he nearly let fall his secret. "Why, do you realize that I'm a----" "Ah, don't start that," sneered the conductor, "I can spot a gambler as far as I can see one. You and your side partner here want to look out, that's all, or I'll drop you at the next tank." Then he walked out, his very shoulder blades uttering threats. Dr. Temple stared after him, but the gambler stared at Dr. Temple with a mingling of accusation and of homage. "So you're one of us," he said, and seizing the old man's limp hand, shook it heartily: "I got to slip it to you. Your make-up is great. You nearly had me for a come-on. Great!" And then he sauntered out, leaving the clergyman's head swimming. Dr. Temple turned to Mallory for explanations, but Mallory only waved him away. He was not quite convinced himself. He was convinced only that whatever else anybody might be, nobody apparently desired to be a clergyman in these degenerate days. The conductor returned and threw into Dr. Temple the glare of two basilisk eyes. The old man put out a beseeching hand and began: "My good man, you do me a grave injustice." The conductor snapped back: "You say a word to me and I'll do you worse than that. And if I spot you with a pack of cards in your hand again, I'll tie you to the cow-ketcher."