“Say!  He raves on like this for three minutes, stopping to laugh like a maniac about every three words, before I can get a word in to tell him that I’m a delicate, high-strung organization myself, if you come right down to it, and I can’t stand there in my nightgown listening to a string of nonsense.  He chokes and says:  ‘What nonsense?’ And I ask him does he think I’d pay a thousand dollars out on a game I hadn’t overlooked?  And he says didn’t I agree to in the presence of witnesses, and the cards is laid out right there now on the dining-room table if I got the least suspicion the game wasn’t played fair, and will I come up and look for myself!  And I says ‘Not in a thousand years!’ Because what does he think I am!

“So then Mis’ Wales she breaks in and says:  ’Listen, Mr. Floud!  You are taking a most peculiar attitude in this matter.  You perhaps don’t understand that it means a great deal to dear Leonard and me—­try to think calmly and summon your finer instincts.  You said I could not only play with my own cards at any hour of the night or day, but in my own home; and I chose to play here, because conditions are more harmonious to my psychic powers—­’ And so on and so on; and she can’t understand my peculiar attitude once more, till I thought I’d bust.

“It was lucky she had the telephone between us or I should certainly of been pinched for a crime of violence.  But I got kind of collected in my senses and I told her I already had been pushed as far as I could be; and then I think of a good one:  I ask her does she know what General Sherman said war was?  So she says, ’No; but what has that got to do with it?’ ‘Well, listen carefully!’ I says.  ’You tell dear Leonard that I am now saying my last word in this matter by telling you both to go to war—­and then ask him to tell you right out what Sherman said war was.’

“I listened a minute longer for her scream, and when it come, like sweet music or something, I went to bed again and slept happy.  Yes, sir; I got even with them sharks all right, though she’s telling all over town this morning that I have repudiated a debt of honour and she’s going to have that thousand if there’s any law in the land; and anyway, she’ll get me took up for conducting a common gambling house.  Gee!  It makes me feel good!”

That’s the way with this old Egbert boy; nothing ever seems to faze him long.

“How much do you lose on the night?” I ask him.

“Well, the bar was a great help,” he says, very chipper; “so I only lose about fourteen hundred all told.  It’ll make a nice bunch for the Belgians, and the few dollars you ladies made at your cheap booths will help some.”

“How will your fourteen hundred lost be any help to the Belgians?” I wanted to know; and he looked at me very superior and as crafty as a fox.

“Simple enough!” he says in a lofty manner.  “I was going to give what I win, wasn’t I?  So why wouldn’t I give what I lose?  That’s plain enough for any one but a woman to see, ain’t it?  I give Mis’ Ballard, the treasurer, a check for fourteen hundred not an hour ago.  I told you I knew how to run one of these grafts, didn’t I?  Didn’t I, now?”