He staggered from the room. Archie rose, intending, as host, to see him off the premises. Pendarvon caught him by the arm.

"Let the beggar see himself out. If we have luck he may break his neck as he goes downstairs. He's made a bid for it." It seemed that he had.

We could hear him stumble down two or three steps at a time. We listened. There was the sound of another stumble. Pendarvon laughed.

"Bid number two."

Directly afterwards we heard him fidgeting with the handle of the front door. Archie grew restless.

"He'll raise the dead if he goes on like that much longer. Let me go down, and let him out."

We heard the door open, and immediately afterwards shut with a bang.

"He's let himself out. I fancy a little more rapidly than he intended.

I'll bet an even pony that he's gone face foremost into the street.

Let's hope it." Pendarvon picked up a pack of cards. "It's my deal.

What are we going to do?"

Getting up, Archie helped himself to another soda and whiskey.

"Who'll have some?" We both of us did. "Let's play unlimited. I'm sick of this." Pendarvon raised his gla.s.s.

"Here's to you, Archie; you're a gambler."

"I thank the stars I am. Have you any objection, Reggie?"

I shrugged my shoulders, perceiving that remonstrance would be thrown away.

"I'm at your service."

"Then we'll play unlimited."

And we did.

It was a warmish little game. There is something about unlimited poker which appeals to one. The spirit of the gamble gets into one's veins like the breath of the battle into the nostrils of the soldier. One feels that it is a game for men, and that the manhood which is in one has a chance to score. Archie evidently meant going for the gloves. He never bet less than a hundred, and a thousand--in pencil on a sc.r.a.p of paper--was as nothing to him. If we wanted to be in that game we too had to treat thousands as if they had been sovereigns. At the beginning the luck went round to him--possibly because it took some little time to make his methods ours. He bluffed outrageously. With a pair one was not disposed, at the commencement, to pay a thousand to see his cards.

The result was that he scooped pool after pool. When he had made it plain that, if we wanted him to show, we should have to pay, we began to pay.

And luck began!

The ante was fixed at a tenner. I was ante. The other two had come in.

Making good, I drew three to a pair of sevens, without improving my hand. Pendarvon opened with a hundred, Archie promptly making it five.

I had not had a sight--I had had no cards--for the last five hands.

This time, the devil entering into me, I made up my mind that I would find out what sort of game Archie was playing, and have a view if it broke me. I saw his five hundred. Pendarvon saw it too. Then Archie turned up a pair of knaves. I yielded without showing, and to my surprise, Pendarvon did as I had done. A pair of knaves seemed hardly worth fifteen hundred pounds. It looked like easy earning.

The same thing went on time after time. Archie could not be induced to see a man while he could keep on raising. The very next hand, when we had both come in, Archie started with a five hundred bet. So Pendarvon and I let him have the entries. And we had a twenty pound pot.

We had gone right round and come back again to pairs, when Pendarvon announced that he could open. He made it a hundred to enter. Archie and I went in--though, so far as I was concerned, I had an empty hand.

Pendarvon took two, Archie stood pat, and I drew five, finding myself in possession of a pair of aces. Pendarvon started with five hundred pounds; we seemed to be getting incapable of thinking of anything under. Archie raised him nine thousand five hundred pounds, tabling his IOU for a round ten thousand. I retired; a pair of aces was not quite good enough for that. If I was to be broken, I might just as well be broken for something better. Pendarvon looked at Archie as if he would have liked to have seen right into him.

"Have you the Bank of England at your back?"

"What are you going to raise me?" inquired Archie.

"Nothing. I go. The courage is yours. I opened with a pair of jacks."

Pendarvon showed them. I doubt if he had anything more. I doubt if Archie had as much. But, still, ten thousand. The average man is not inclined to go as far as that upon a pair of jacks. I could see that Pendarvon felt that he had been bluffed. It put his back up. He meant to be even with Archie--and he was.

"Let me clearly understand what unlimited poker means. Does it mean that I'm at liberty to put half a sheet of notepaper on the table and say I raise a million?"

Archie fired up at the innuendo Pendarvon's words seemed to convey.

"What do you mean by half a sheet of notepaper? Do you suggest that my IOU is nothing but half a sheet of notepaper?"

"Not a bit of it. Why should I? My dear Archie, don't get warm. Only we are none of us millionaires. I know I'm not. Ten thousand pounds is a considerable sum to me. We, all of us, are playing on the nod. Before you go any further suppose we name a date by which all paper must be redeemed."

"I'm willing."

"Suppose we say that it must be redeemed within a week?"

"I'm willing again."

I also acquiesced. I saw the force of what he said, and I saw the pull which it would give him over Archie. Where Archie was likely to find such a sum as ten thousand pounds within a week was more than I knew, and, unless I greatly erred, more than he knew either. Pendarvon is a man of substance. His stannary dues alone are supposed to average thirty or forty thousand pounds a year, and if it came to a question of ready-money not improbably he could buy up Archie lock, stock, and barrel, and scarcely feel that he had made a purchase.

Archie must have been possessed by the very spirit of mischief. He entirely refused to be out-crowed on his own dunghill--even though he knew his rival to be the larger and the stronger bird. Almost immediately afterwards Pendarvon started the betting with a thousand pounds. Archie retorted by raising him fourteen thousand, laying on the table his IOU for fifteen thousand pounds. I went. I had two pairs, but the atmosphere promised to grow too hot for me. Pendarvon laughed.

"I'll see your raise."

He placed his own IOU on Archie's.

"Three kings."

Archie faced them. Pendarvon laughed again. He threw his cards away.

"Too good!"

He had supposed that Archie was bluffing--and had paid for his supposition.

The game fluctuated. Pendarvon had Archie once or twice upon the hip, paring down his winnings. At last we came to what proved to be the last, and hardest-fought-for pool of the sitting. It was a pot. We had gone right through the hands. In the second round Archie opened when it came to two pairs or better. He made it a hundred to go in. I went in, though I had only queens. I kept the pair and an ace, and took two--two more queens. Pendarvon and Archie both stood pat. I perceived that the scent of a big battle was coming into the air--when I saw my four queens, and made sure that they were four queens, it did me good to smell it coming.

Archie began, for him, very modestly--with a five hundred bet. I turned it into a thousand, which Pendarvon doubled. Then we went at it, hammer and tongs. As I raised Archie, and Pendarvon every time raised me, it made it impossible for Archie to even the bets, and force a display. At last it grew too hot even for him. I reckoned that I had thirty thousand in the pool. Pendarvon had made it another four thousand for Archie to come in. Although he was beginning to look as if he was not altogether enjoying himself, in he came. I raised him. Pendarvon raised me. The betting went on. I had IOU's for sixty thousand in the pool.

The fates alone knew where the cash was to come from if I lost--unless it came from Sir Haselton Jardine, against which possibility the odds seemed pretty strong. Pendarvon raised me five thousand more. Archie realised at last that he could not see us unless we chose to let him--and that we did not mean to let him. He threw down his cards with a curse--it being a bad habit of his to use strong language when, if he only knew it, milder words would serve him at least equally well. One can d.a.m.n so effectively with a softly-uttered blessing.

When Archie went I saw Pendarvon.

"Fours," he said.

I felt a shudder go all down my back.

"Four what?"