The game was vingt et un, or, as they called it, Van John.  They cut for banker.  Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank from him.  For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative, continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the others.  But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in writing—­he understood from watching the movement of their lips.  The luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very much.  The bell-boy brought up the siphons.  The Dummy took off his coat, and the other two followed his example.  They were all smoking, and an acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas globe.

But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them.  The luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the Dummy.  Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken, and he had been forced to buy in.  The play resolved itself into two parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy.  Long since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.  The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending.  The acrid tobacco smoke no longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their heads.  They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle of the shuffled cards.  Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw off his vest, his collar, and his scarf.  For a moment the luck seemed about to settle on him.  He was still banking, and twice in succession he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a third of his chips.  But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the lead again, winning from both the others.  From this time on it was settled.  The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and Vandover merely fighting for second place.  Ellis held his lead; at one o’clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game.  The profound silence of the room seemed to widen about them.  After midnight the noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that he was carrying.  Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from the sleeping city, the noises