Then, while they waited for John's reappearance, a slightly embarrassed silence fell upon them. Mott-Smith was thinking half enviously of a girl he himself knew, and of the difference between his income and Palmer's. Gordon, too, was thinking, not at random, but quickly, daringly and to the point. Vanulm began mechanically to figure up the bridge scores. Then he laughed. "'Unlucky at cards, Harry,'" he quoted. "You're sixty-eight dollars to the bad, I'm out forty-five, and Mott-Smith's plus thirteen. Our friend Gordon must be deucedly unlucky in love, for he's robbed us of an even century." Gordon laughed again. "Poor consolation," he said. "I think we'll all agree that Harry's the real winner to-night." And then, as John filled the glasses, he added: "Here's to you both, my boy, and may the Goddess of Fortune bring you all the luck you deserve." The glasses clinked, and were drained dry. Almost at once a subtle change came over Palmer's face. "That's great stuff!" he cried. "You were right, Gordon. I believe you always are. It wouldn't do not to celebrate the occasion. Lots of time afterwards, you know, and all that sort of thing. John, John--" and he tapped at the bell impatiently until the waiter again appeared, "John, your first bottle's all right. Now you want to get us another just like it, and then another just like that, and then you want to stand by for further orders--stand by for first aid to the injured, I mean--what the devil do I mean, anyway?" The others laughed, but Gordon's laugh was too hearty to ring true, and the way in which he bent forward and slapped Palmer on the back savored of deliberate acting. "You'll be the death of me yet, old man," he cried. "I swear you're the brightest fellow in the whole club. You don't realize what a sense of humor you've got." And then, as Palmer, glowing with the joy of just appreciation, went on to be more and more humorous still, John appeared with the second bottle, and later with the third; later still, long after Vanulm and Mott-Smith had gone home, at Gordon's suggestion he brought the fourth and fifth, and about two o'clock in the morning, as the young millionaire's unruly legs balked at the long flight of stairs which led to the sleeping rooms on the floor above, it was as "first aid to the injured," after all, that he was finally called upon to serve. CHAPTER II A LITTLE DINNER AT THE ALBEMARLE Lieutenant Osborne, commander of the new submarine, _Anhinga_, wiry, alert, bronzed, had proved to be the most entertaining of companions, and the little dinner in his honor had turned out to be an entire success. Osborne leaned forward in his chair and meditatively relit his cigar. "So that," he concluded, "was the first and only time the engines really bothered us. It was close enough while it lasted, though. Still, we got by."