in the streets died away.  The last electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long minor wail.  Occasionally a belated coupe, a nighthawk, rattled over the cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like some kind of halting clock.  The room became more and more close, none of them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four flaring gas-jets.  By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes and quivered in their fingers.  Never for an instant did their glances leave the cards.  Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws.  The perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover’s hands, running down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like castanets.  In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on steadily.

Then they began to “plunge,” agreeing to play a no limit game and raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.  Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the bank.  Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the game was between him and Vandover.  Ellis was banking, and at length offered to sell the bank to either one of them.  For the first time since the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short, brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.

“How much for the bank?” inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking from one to the other.  Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in figures, on his pad, and showed it to him.  Vandover looked at what the Dummy had written, and said: 

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty,” scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover’s lips form the word.

“Twenty-five,” returned Vandover.  The Dummy hesitated a moment and then wrote “thirty.”  Ellis shook his head saying, “I’ll keep the bank myself at that.”

“Forty dollars!” cried Vandover.  The Dummy shook his head, leaning back in his chair.  Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.