“What’s the use being sore?” he asked. “It’s simple enough. You staked against a better mind. Anyway you have the ten thousand, haven’t you?” Luella reached for her purse. “I don’t know,” she said, “I’ll look. Haven’t you decided to steal it back yet?” Sam laughed. “I’m coming to that,” he said, “don’t hurry me.” For several minutes they sat eyeing each other, and then, with an earnest ring in his voice and a smile on his lips, Sam began talking again. “Look here!” he said, “I’m no Frank Robson and I do not like giving a woman the worst of it. I have been studying you and I can’t see you running around loose with ten thousand dollars of real money on you. You do not fit into the picture and the money will not last a year in your hands. “Give it to me,” he urged; “let me invest it for you. I’m a winner. I’ll double it for you in a year.” The actress stared past Sam’s shoulder to where a group of young men sat about a table drinking and talking loudly. Sam began telling an anecdote of an Irish baggage man in Caxton. When he had finished he looked at her and laughed. “As that shoemaker looked to Jerry Donlin so you, as the colonel’s wife, looked to me,” he said. “I had to make you get out of my flower bed.” A gleam of resolution came into the wandering eyes of Luella London and she took the purse from the back of the chair and brought out the roll of bills. “I’m a sport,” she said, “and I’m going to lay a bet on the best horse I ever saw. You may trim me, but I always would take a chance.” Turning, she called a waiter and, handing him a bill from her purse, threw the roll on the table. “Take the pay for the spread and the wine we have had out of that,” she said, handing him the loose bill and then turning to Sam. “You ought to beat the world. Anyway your genius gets recognition from me. I pay for this party and when you see the colonel say good-bye to him for me.” The next day, at his request, Sue Rainey called at the offices of the Arms Company and Sam handed her the paper signed by Luella London. It was an agreement on her part to divide with Sam, half and half, any money she might be able to blackmail out of Colonel Rainey. The colonel’s daughter glanced from the paper to Sam’s face. “I thought so,” she said, and a puzzled look came into her eyes. “But I do not understand this. What does this paper do and what did you pay for it?” “The paper,” Sam answered, “puts her in a hole and I paid ten thousand dollars for it.” Sue Rainey laughed and taking a checkbook from her handbag laid it on the desk and sat down. “Do you get your half?” she asked. “I get it all,” answered Sam, and then leaning back in his chair launched into an explanation. When he had told her of the talk in the restaurant she sat with the checkbook lying before her and with the puzzled look still in her eyes. Without giving her time for comment, Sam plunged into the midst of what had been in his mind to say to her.