Three sixes had fallen to the Congressman’s queens, and he raised it twenty. Thereupon they all looked keenly at the Colonel. Not a muscle moved in his stern, handsome face, as he saw the raise, and went fifty better. It was ninety dollars for the Lawyer to come in. He simply made good, and looked anxiously to see if there would be another raise. They criticised his play afterward, claiming that he should have raised back, but he defended it by saying that there were two players yet to hear from. The first of these resigned. A king straight was no hand for that struggle. The Congressman was still confident of his full hand, however, for he had drawn three sixes, and he came back at the Colonel with fifty more. The Colonel raised him a hundred. It looked as if it would be a duel between him and the Congressman, but the Lawyer was still to hear from. He raised it a hundred. The Congressman made good, and the Colonel raised again. The Lawyer counted his chips carefully, and finding exactly the right amount, covered the last raise. Then, opening his pocketbook, he drew out a hundred-dollar bill and pushed that to the middle of the table. Once more the Congressman made good, and the Colonel raised it a hundred. The Lawyer came back, and the Congressman dropped out. The Colonel raised it a hundred. The Lawyer made it another, and there was over twenty-five hundred dollars on the table. The struggle of the evening had come, and the three who had dropped out were not less excited than the two players. To all appearance they were far more so, for the Colonel looked as calm as if on parade, and the Lawyer’s only sign of agitation was his heightened color. None of them thought much of that, for he was of plethoric habit and flushed easily. The Colonel raised it a hundred. The Lawyer fumbled in his pocketbook for a moment, and, drawing out a fresh roll of bills, raised it two hundred. The Colonel raised it five hundred. The Lawyer came back at him with five hundred more. The Colonel raised it a thousand. The Lawyer flipped up the ends of the bills he was holding in his hand, and, counting them rapidly, found a little over two thousand dollars. Separating the odd money, he extended his hand with the twenty centuries in it, and was in the act of speaking, when he checked himself as suddenly as if he had been shot. “I raise--” he began, and then was stricken dumb. The bills were still in his grasp, and, instead of laying them down, he sat for a moment as rigid as a statue, while his face grew white. The silence was intense. The Colonel was the only one in the party who showed no excitement, but the Lawyer, who had watched him up to that moment with the most acute scrutiny, no longer looked at him at all. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hand, picked up his cards, which he had laid, face down, before him, and looked them over again.