"Beats three kings," admitted the other, ruefully laying down his hand. The winner pocketed the money with an exaggerated wink in the direction of the newspaper youth who had been an interested spectator. The game progressed, and before many deals another challenge was passed and accepted between the two. This time it was the salesman who profited to the extent of twenty-five dollars which he received from the stakeholder with the remark that he would bet his whole roll on a jack full any old day. The elderly gentleman smoked in silence and amused himself by mentally cataloguing the players. Suddenly his attention became riveted. What he saw jarred harshly upon his estimate of the athletic young man who, at the conclusion of his deal, dexterously slipped some cards beneath the table from his pile of tricks, then, bunching the pack, passed it to the Westerner for the next deal. He was on the point of exposing this cheap bit of knavery when the young man glanced in his direction. Something in the steady gaze of the gray eyes, though for the life of him he could not have told what, stayed his purpose, and he settled into his seat, more puzzled than before. "If it had been any one of the others," he thought to himself; "and then to think that he turns around and with a look virtually makes me a party to his tuppenny trickery!" His reflections were cut short by a sharp exclamation from the investigator of vice who, in spite of his desire to appear composed, was evidently laboring under great excitement. "I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!" He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his hand over--and with a careless: "Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man, who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in: "Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And just to show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred." He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly at the newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to his pocket. "Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!" "Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see my hand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling good one----" "I'll bet"--the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from the leather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto--"I've got you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back at you." "You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. I ain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as good as they did." "I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watch across the board. Both men examined it. "Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your word for it. Stick her up--here's the fifty."