Badger Billy, who had been silently listening with his eyes half closed, was possessed of a sudden inventive gift. "Yes, why don't you?" he repeated. "If I read this village cut-up right, and I think I do, he'll take a sporting chance. Get him over to the Forty-second Street dump on a proposition to play two-handed stud with Harry there, then pull off a phoney pinch for gambling." "No chance," returned Phelps. "He'd be on to that game; it's a dead one, too." "Not if you work it this way," insisted Billy, in whom the creative spirit was still strong. "Tell him that we're all sore at Harry, here; that Harry threw the gang last night and got me put away. I'll have McDermott take me down and lock me up on suspicion for a couple of hours, so you can bring him down and show me to him. Tell him you've found a way to get square. Harry's supposed to have a grouch about that stud poker taunt and wants to play Wallingford two-handed, five thousand a side. Tell him to go into this game, and that just when they have the money and the cards on the table, you'll pull off a phoney pinch and have your fake officer take the money and cards for evidence, then you'll split up with him." Billy paused and looked around with a triumphant eye. It was a long, long speech for the Badger, and a vivid bit of creative work of which he felt justly proud. "Fine!" observed Larry in deep sarcasm. "Then I suppose we give him the blackjack and take it all away from him?" "No, you mutt," returned Billy, having waited for this objection so as to bring out the clever part of his scheme as a climax. "Just as we have Dan pull off the pinch, in jumps Sprig Foles and pinches Dan for impersonating an officer. Then Sprig cops the money and the cards for evidence, while we all make a get-away." A long and thoughtful silence followed the exposition of this great scheme of Billy's. It was Phelps who spoke first. "There's one thing about it," he admitted: "it's a new one." "Grandest little double cross that was ever pulled over," announced Billy in the pride of authorship. It was a matter of satisfaction, to say nothing of surprise, to Short-Card Larry to note the readiness, even the alacrity, with which young Wallingford fell into the trap. Would he accept the traitorous Mr. Phelps' challenge if guaranteed that he would win? He would! There was nothing young Wallingford detested so much as a traitor. Moreover, he had a grouch at Mr. Phelps himself.