One round we all came in. I was first bettor. Silvester was blind. I opened with the limit. Each man went the limit better in his turn. When there was four hundred in the pool Silvester went out. Another round or two and Teddy went. There was over five hundred in the pool. Pendarvon had raised the limit over Archie. It was sixty pounds for me to come in. I had a straight, knave high. I saw the sixty. Archie saw it, and went twenty better. Pendarvon raised him twenty. I saw the forty. Archie scribbled another IOU--he had been reduced for some time to paper. He had raised again. Pendarvon followed suit. I thought that it was enough for me, and went. The two kept at it. There must have been over a thousand in before Pendarvon saw. Archie laid down his hand, with a smile, as though he felt sure that, this time, the luck was his. "A full--queens high." Pendarvon laughed. "Not good enough! I take this pool--I pip you." He also had a full--with three kings on top. Silvester spoke. "Will somebody kindly stick a penknife into Teddy." I looked up--poor Teddy was asleep. When, however, we charged him with it, he endeavoured to wake up and call us names. He insisted on continuing to play. It proved to be as much as he could do to pick up his cards--more than he could do to see them when picked up. The very next round, when asked if he proposed to cover the ante, he threw down his cards face upwards on the table, observing that it was no good coming in on a hand like that. He had held three queens! I struck. I declined to go shares in a robbery. "Teddy," I remarked, "if you'll take my advice you'll go home to bed. Just now poker's not your line." "I'm not feeling very well," he said. "I hate this game; it makes me ill. Let's play something else." "We will. We'll sing 'Rock-a-by, baby,' and play at going to sleep. Come along, Teddy, let me offer you the temporary loan of my arm." Archie interposed. "Hang it, Reggie, you're not going! Put the beggar to sleep alongside Gravesend on the rug." "I'm not going to sleep on the rug," said Teddy, "I hate the rug." We compromised, putting him to bed on the couch in Archie's bedroom. It seemed unlikely that he would fall off, since he was asleep before we had the whole of him laid down. While we were together in the bedroom, I said a private word to Archie. "If you'll hearken to the wisdom of the wise, old man, you'll cut it. You're not in the vein." He chose to misunderstand my meaning. "Do you mean I'm drunk?" "I think I am--at least too drunk for poker; and too sleepy, also. If you'll allow me, I'll get home." Archie looked at me in the way I knew, all his Scotch temper in his eyes. "Are you afraid, or broke? Or what the devil's up?" Pendarvon called from the next room. "Are you fellows having a little game by yourselves?" I jerked my thumb towards Pendarvon as Archie and I went in together. "That's just what is up--the devil."