With this I left him and entered the low-raftered office--it was really a pleasant lounging-room, unspoiled by the usual hotel-office paraphernalia. Dick had followed close behind, and as I paused, hearing voices raised angrily in the dining-room beyond, I turned to him for an explanation. As the suitors had been the only guests of the inn since their advent, having stipulated that the proprietor should exclude other applicants for meals or lodging, I attributed the commotion to strife in their own ranks. Dick nodded sullenly and bade me keep on. "You 'd better take a look at those fellows. I 've quit them--quite out of it; remember that." The dining-room door was slightly ajar, and I flung it open. Ormsby, Shallenberger, Henderson, Hume, Gorse, and Arbuthnot had been engaged with cards at a round table in an alcove, but some dispute having apparently risen, they stood in their places engaged in acrimonious debate. As near as I could determine, some one of them--I think it was Ormsby--wished to abandon the game, which had been undertaken to determine in what order they should be permitted to pay visits to Hopefield in future, the calls _en masse_ having grown intolerable. They were so absorbed in their argument that they failed to note my appearance, and I stood unobserved within the door. The dialogue between the card-players was swift and hot. "It's no good, I tell you!" cried Ormsby. "There's no fairness in this unless all take their chances together!" "You ought to have thought of that before we began. This was your scheme, but because the cards are running against you, you want to quit. I say we'll go on!" This from Henderson, who struck the table sharply as he concluded. "You knew Wiggins and Dick were n't going in when we started, and you are not likely to get them in now. Your anxiety to cut the rest of us out by any means seems to have unsettled your mind," shouted Gorse. "I say let's drop this and stand to our original agreement that no man speak till the end of the fortnight." "After that whole scheme has been torn to pieces like paper! There's been nothing fair in this business from the start! We ought to have kept Arrowood here and held together. And we ought to have got rid of that Ames fellow--he did n't belong in this at all; and instead of protecting ourselves against outsiders we have sat here like a lot of fools while he's been making himself agreeable there in the house--right there in the house!"