Guy had been lined up that afternoon in the freshman second team during a stiff game with the first, and as a result was feeling tired and a trifle bored. He yawned several times in the course of a desultory conversation with Phillip, and finally, tossing aside his cigar, arose and stretched his arms wearily overhead. “Look here, you fellows, I’m sick of jabber. Who’s for a game of cards?” “Good stuff!” cried Chester. “Fetch ’em out.” “You play?” asked Guy, turning to Phillip. “A little.” “What are you going to play?” asked Boerick. “Oh, nickel ante, I guess.” “Too exciting; leave me out.” “You’ll either get off that couch and take a hand or you’ll be put out,” said Guy firmly. Boerick grinned and drew a chair to the table from which Guy had swept everything unceremoniously onto the floor. But even nickel-ante didn’t prove sufficiently exhilarating to Guy, and when, after some twenty minutes of play during which Phillip won forty cents, Boerick proposed raising the limit to a dollar, he promptly agreed. Phillip hesitated. He had only about six dollars in his pocket, while his entire wealth was represented by something well under a hundred. “I’ll look on, I reckon,” he announced. “Oh, come on in,” urged Chester. “It won’t hurt you.” “To lose your money,” said Guy, “is one of the few really satisfactory ways of enjoying life. That’s what money’s for――to lose. As the psalmist so sweetly sings, ‘Here to-day and gone to-morrow; squander what you’ve got, then borrow.’ Besides, it is quite within the possibilities that you’ll win enough to give us all a dinner at the Touraine. Come to think about it, fellows, I’m not sure that it isn’t a decidedly risky thing we’re doing. Virginians, you know, have a devil of a reputation for cards and pistols.” “That was before the war,” drawled Boerick. “Virginia has degenerated. Isn’t that so, Ryerson?” “No,” replied Phillip, striving to conceal his annoyance. “Our reputation as card-players may be gone, but I reckon we’re still right handy with a pistol.” “Oh, I apologize,” laughed Boerick. “You’re wise to leave cards alone, then, and wait until the pistols come on. Still, if it’s merely a matter of lack of money, I should be delighted to loan you what you need. Though, honestly, I had begun to congratulate myself upon at last having met with a Southerner who wasn’t dead broke.” “Shut up, Joe,” said Guy. “Cut for deal.” Phillip felt the blood mounting to his face, and would gladly have given all the money he feared to risk at cards for the privilege of leaning across the table and slapping Boerick’s face. As it was he kept silence a moment until he was sure that his voice was steady. Then he answered: “We Virginians are not in the habit of borrowing. Perhaps that’s one reason some of us are so poor. But the reason I hesitated about playing is that I have only a few dollars with me and it hardly seems worth while to start. I’m not much of a poker hand.”