"Oh, it's the truth, all right," said Mr. Shultz easily. "But what's the use of being upset? I don't want you to think badly of the General. He is a little hard on his enemies, and even on his friends, but he believes we are in this life to get what there is out of it. He knows we've only got one life to live. Everybody is after the bacon and he might as well be the one to get it. Yes, sir, to bring home the bacon every time, that's the General's philosophy." "See here," said the General, "I don't mind your lying about my actions, but I will not have you explaining my philosophy." And the General smiled, but a bit uneasily. Mr. Shultz also smiled, his smile of white teeth and clear eyes, all candor and arrogance. "Why, don't I know you like I know my own self?" he demanded. "Ain't you and I thick as thieves?" He leaned over and clapped the General on the shoulder. The General shrank from him and began to deal, but Mr. Shultz held up two fingers close together and waved them before his face, to show how little separated his sympathies from those of the General. "Don't you tell me everything?" he continued. "And if you don't, don't I know where to find out anyway?" "I don't know. Do you?" Mr. Shultz leaned his elbows on the table and, as his cards came, turned the edges up just enough to peep under. "Sure I do. Like to hear, Miss Davis, how I find out what I want to know about the General, that is, when he hasn't confidence enough to tell me himself? Well, this is how. I give fifty dollars to his body-guard." Megan looked at the General but he did not seem to be very disconcerted by this news. Perhaps he felt that his body-guard would not be in possession of any very valuable information. And he had also just drawn a pair to three of a kind. "You give too much," he said. "Oh, sometimes I give more than that," said Mr. Shultz. And when the hand was finished he repeated, "Yes, it becomes an expensive business. If fifty isn't enough, why, I give two hundred and fifty to Captain Li here. Yes, sir! And if it is something I really have to know, five hundred will do it. Five hundred Mex to Captain Li." The captain, recognizing his name, looked inquiringly about the table. The General's face seemed to have shrunk under his smile. "And how does Captain Li know?" Megan felt at once by the tone of his voice that he was excited, and evidently Mr. Shultz recognized it too. He pushed his chair back and got up. "You'd better ask him that," he said. But the General did not ask. He sat counting chips from one hand to the other and back again. He was looking down at them, and over one eye a small nerve pulsed visibly. Mr. Shultz walked around the table and as he passed behind the General he looked at Mah-li and his teeth flashed in a smile.