"Oh, pshaw!" he exclaimed. "There are those confounded letters I promised to post. You go in, Mr. Snaffle, and I'll go back to the letter box on the corner. You know the way, and you'll find the fellows in the first card-room." He opened the door as he spoke, and as Snaffle entered and closed it after him, Fenton ran down the steps and walked to the next corner. He had no letters to mail, but it was characteristic of his dramatic way of doing things that he walked to the letter-box, raised the drop and went through the motion of slipping in an envelope. He was accustomed to say that when one played a part it could not be done too carefully, and it amused him to reflect that if he were watched his action would appear consistent with his words, while if he were timed he would be found to have been gone from the club house exactly long enough. Not that he supposed anybody was likely to take the trouble to do either of these things, but Fenton was an imaginative man and he found a humorous pleasure in finishing even his trickery in an artistic manner. It was Saturday night, and just before midnight a servant opened the card-room door. The room was full of smoke, empty glasses stood beside the players, and piles of red and blue and white "chips" were heaped in uneven distribution along the edges of the table. "It is ten minutes of twelve, gentlemen," the servant said, and retired. "Jack-pots round," said Rangely, dealing rapidly. "Look lively now." He and Fenton had been winning, the pile of blue counters beside the latter representing nearly thirty dollars, with enough red and white ones to cover his original investments. The first jackpot and the second were played, Dr. Wilson wining one and Snaffle the other on the first hand. On the third, Fenton bet for awhile, holding three aces against a full hand held by the fifth man. "It's all right," Fenton remarked, as Rangely chaffed him. "I am waiting for the 'kittie-pot.' See what a pile there is to go into that. I always expect to gather in the 'kittie.'" The fourth pot was quickly passed, and then Wilson, who had been managing the "kittie," put upon the table the surplus, which to-night chanced to be unusually large. The cards were dealt and dealt three times again before the pot could be opened, and then Rangely started it. Arthur looked at his hand in disgust. He held the nine of hearts, the five, six, eight, and nine of spades, and as he said to himself he never had luck in drawing to either straight or flush. Still the stake was good, and he came in, discarding his heart. He drew the seven of spades. Rangely was betting on three aces, and Wilson on a full hand, so that the betting ran rather high. "Twelve o'clock, gentlemen," the servant said at the door. And when Fenton began his Sunday by winning the pot on his straight flush, he found himself more than sixty dollars to the good on his evening's work.