"I'll see your raise." He placed his own IOU on Archie's. "Three kings." Archie faced them. Pendarvon laughed again. He threw his cards away. "Too good!" He had supposed that Archie was bluffing--and had paid for his supposition. The game fluctuated. Pendarvon had Archie once or twice upon the hip, paring down his winnings. At last we came to what proved to be the last, and hardest-fought-for pool of the sitting. It was a pot. We had gone right through the hands. In the second round Archie opened when it came to two pairs or better. He made it a hundred to go in. I went in, though I had only queens. I kept the pair and an ace, and took two--two more queens. Pendarvon and Archie both stood pat. I perceived that the scent of a big battle was coming into the air--when I saw my four queens, and made sure that they were four queens, it did me good to smell it coming. Archie began, for him, very modestly--with a five hundred bet. I turned it into a thousand, which Pendarvon doubled. Then we went at it, hammer and tongs. As I raised Archie, and Pendarvon every time raised me, it made it impossible for Archie to even the bets, and force a display. At last it grew too hot even for him. I reckoned that I had thirty thousand in the pool. Pendarvon had made it another four thousand for Archie to come in. Although he was beginning to look as if he was not altogether enjoying himself, in he came. I raised him. Pendarvon raised me. The betting went on. I had IOU's for sixty thousand in the pool. The fates alone knew where the cash was to come from if I lost--unless it came from Sir Haselton Jardine, against which possibility the odds seemed pretty strong. Pendarvon raised me five thousand more. Archie realised at last that he could not see us unless we chose to let him--and that we did not mean to let him. He threw down his cards with a curse--it being a bad habit of his to use strong language when, if he only knew it, milder words would serve him at least equally well. One can damn so effectively with a softly-uttered blessing. When Archie went I saw Pendarvon. "Fours," he said. I felt a shudder go all down my back. "Four what?" "Tens." "Queens." As I faced them, in its holy of holies my heart sang a loud Te Deum. Pendarvon stood up, still laughing. "That's enough for me." When I heard the peculiar something that was ringing in his laughter, knowing the man as I did, I knew that Mr. Pendarvon would watch for me and wait. His turn would come. "I'm hanged!" cried Archie, "if I haven't thrown my money clean away!" He certainly had--that is, if his IOU's represented money, which his best friend might be excused for doubting. CHAPTER XVIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS: A MODERN INSTANCE. "WEST KENSINGTON. "DEAR MR. TOWNSEND,--Will you come and dine with me one evening next week? I am always free.