"I say, Pentfield, I see that partner of yours has been cutting up monkey-shines on the outside." "Trust Corry to have a good time," Pentfield had answered; "especially when he has earned it." "Every man to his taste," Nick Inwood laughed; "but I should scarcely call getting married a good time." "Corry married!" Pentfield cried, incredulous and yet surprised out of himself for the moment. 'Sure," Inwood said. "I saw it in the 'Frisco paper that came in over the ice this morning." "Well, and who's the girl?" Pentfield demanded, somewhat with the air of patient fortitude with which one takes the bait of a catch and is aware at the time of the large laugh bound to follow at his expense. Nick Inwood pulled the newspaper from his pocket and began looking it over, saying:- "I haven't a remarkable memory for names, but it seems to me it's something like Mabel--Mabel--oh yes, here it--'Mabel Holmes, daughter of Judge Holmes,'--whoever he is." Lawrence Pentfield never turned a hair, though he wondered how any man in the North could know her name. He glanced coolly from face to face to note any vagrant signs of the game that was being played upon him, but beyond a healthy curiosity the faces betrayed nothing. Then he turned to the gambler and said in cold, even tones:- "Inwood, I've got an even five hundred here that says the print of what you have just said is not in that paper." The gambler looked at him in quizzical surprise. "Go 'way, child. I don't want your money." "I thought so," Pentfield sneered, returning to the game and laying a couple of bets. Nick Inwood's face flushed, and, as though doubting his senses, he ran careful eyes over the print of a quarter of a column. Then be turned on Lawrence Pentfield. "Look here, Pentfield," he said, in a quiet, nervous manner; "I can't allow that, you know." "Allow what?" Pentfield demanded brutally. "You implied that I lied." "Nothing of the sort," came the reply. "I merely implied that you were trying to be clumsily witty." "Make your bets, gentlemen," the dealer protested. "But I tell you it's true," Nick Inwood insisted. "And I have told you I've five hundred that says it's not in that paper," Pentfield answered, at the same time throwing a heavy sack of dust on the table. "I am sorry to take your money," was the retort, as Inwood thrust the newspaper into Pentfield's hand. Pentfield saw, though he could not quite bring himself to believe. Glancing through the headline, "Young Lochinvar came out of the North," and skimming the article until the names of Mabel Holmes and Corry Hutchinson, coupled together, leaped squarely before his eyes, he turned to the top of the page. It was a San Francisco paper. "The money's yours, Inwood," he remarked, with a short laugh. "There's no telling what that partner of mine will do when he gets started."