Archie Beaupré came across to me. He was among the last to arrive. He also had been drinking. But liquor did not affect him as it did Teddy Hibbard. He never lost his equilibrium. There never came a stammer into his speech. Nor, in Iago's sense, did it steal away his brains. When drink entered into Archie, the devil went with it. When he had drunk enough to stupefy an ordinary man, he was very near to genius. In that condition I have known him write lines which no poet need be ashamed to own; and I have known him do things which must have set all the imps of Satan chuckling. As he advanced to me, a casual acquaintance might not have supposed that he had been exceeding in the slightest degree. But I knew better. I knew it by something that was in his face, and in his eyes; by the ring that was in his voice, when he spoke; by the very way in which he clasped me by the hand. "Here's luck!" he said--"I'm with you all the way." CHAPTER XVI. DRAWING THE LOT. When we had taken our places, Pendarvon commenced proceedings. He looked round at us and laughed, as if the whole proceedings had been some mighty joke. "Gentlemen, the usual preliminaries, if you please." He had the crimson-covered book open in front of him. He read aloud the oath by which we all had bound ourselves. As he did so, men sobered down a little. The oath which he had evolved from his mischief-making brain was calculated to make one sober. It was the rule that, at each meeting, the oath was to be re-sworn. Having recited it, with his right hand resting on the open page, Pendarvon affixed to it his signature. The book went round. Each man recited the oath, his hand resting on the page, and signed. By the time Pendarvon had the book again, a change came over the spirit of the scene. The suggestion of frivolity which had been in the air had vanished. Hibbard and Silvester, in spite of the assistance which they had received from outside sources, did not look happy. Pendarvon read out the signatures. When he came to one he stopped. "Teddy, have you signed?" Hibbard was indignant--or feigned to be. "Signed? Of course I've signed! Can't you read it?" Pendarvon tugged at his beard and laughed. "Be shot if I can! I can see a smudge, and that's all I can see. In a matter of this importance a signature should be writ as plain as copper-plate, so that all who run may read. Teddy, would you mind signing again, this time a little clearer? and Silvester might follow suit. You would not care to take us at an advantage, and be the only two among us to keep your names dark." Pendarvon went to Teddy with the book in his hand. Placing it on the table in front of him, he leaned over his shoulder while he wrote. "That's better, Teddy; that's plain as print. 'Edward Hibbard,' that's something like a name. Now, Silvester, if you won't mind." Silvester leaned back in his chair, and frowned.