It was a psychological moment. The proposition, fantastic as it was, seemed, under the spell of Coffee John’s enthusiasm, to promise something mysteriously new, something grotesquely romantic. It was a chance to turn a new leaf. The three vagabonds were each stranded at a turn of the tide. The medium, with his nerves unstrung, was only too willing to cast on Fate the responsibility of the next move. The Harvard Freshman, with no nerves at all, one might say, hailed the adventure as a Quixotic quest that would be amusing to put to the hazard of chance. The hero of Pago Bridge had little spirit left, but, like Vango, he welcomed any fortuitous hint that would tell him which way to turn in his misery. All three were well worked upon by the solace of the moment, and a full stomach makes every man brave. Coffee John’s appeal went home, and from the sordid little shop three beggars went forth as men. One after the other accepted the lucky dime and fared into the night, to pursue the firefly of Fortune. In ten minutes the restaurant was dark and empty, and Coffee John was snoring in a back room. Three Picaroons were busy at the Romance of Roguery. CHAPTER VI THE HARVARD FRESHMAN’S ADVENTURE: THE FORTY PANATELAS James Wiswell Coffin, 3d, was the first of the three adventurers to leave the restaurant, and as he turned up Kearney Street he had a new but fully fledged philosophy buzzing in his brain. Enlightenment had come in a hint dropped by Coffee John himself. It took a Harvard man and a Bostonian of Puritan stock to hatch that chick of thought, but, by the time the coffee was finished, the mental egg broke and an idea burst upon him. It was this: “Facts show that good luck is stable for a while and is then followed by a run of misfortune. The mathematical ideal of alternate favorable and unfavorable combinations does not often occur. There is where the great Law of Probabilities falls down hard. The curve of fortune is like a wave. It should then be played heavily while it ascends, and lightly on the decline. Mine is undoubtedly rising. Go to! I shall proceed to gamble!” But how gamble at midnight with a capital of but one dime? In no other city in the world is it so easy as in San Francisco, that quaint rendezvous of saloons and cigar stands. There the goddess Fortuna has a shrine on every street corner and the offerings of her devotees produce a rattle as characteristic of the town as the slap of the cable pulley in the conduit of the car lines. The cigar slot-machine or “hard-luck-box” is a nickel lottery played by good and bad alike; for it has a reputation no shadier than the church-raffle or the juvenile grab-bag, and is tolerated as a harmless safety-valve for the lust of gaming. All the same, it is the perpetual ubiquitous delusion of the amateur sportsman.