“Double O!” announced a voice.

A player next P. Sybarite swore soulfully.

Thirty-five white chips were stacked alongside the winning stake.  With unbecoming haste P. Sybarite removed them.

“Well,” he sighed privately, “there’s one thing certain:  this won’t last.  But I don’t like to seem a piker.  I’ll just make sure of this one:  it can’t win.  And at that, I’ll be another fifteen dollars in.”

Deliberately he shifted the nineteen remaining of his original stack to keep company with his winning chip on the Double O....

A minute or so later the man at his elbow said excitedly:  “I’ll be damned if it didn’t repeat!  Can you beat that—!”

P. Sybarite stared stupidly.

“How’s that?” he said.

“Double O,” the croupier answered:  “the second time.”

“This is becoming uncanny,” P. Sybarite observed to himself; and—­“Cash!” said he aloud with cold decision.

Seven new one-hundred dollar certificates were placed in his hand.  In a daze he counted, folded, and pocketed them.  While thus engaged he heard the ball spin again.  His original twenty dollars remained upon the double naught.  Ten turned up:  his stake was gathered in.

“You’ve had enough,” Intelligence advised.

“Perfectly true,” P. Sybarite admitted.

This time his anatomy proved quite docile.  He found himself at the foot of the steps, fatuously smiling at the doorkeeper.

“He ain’t come in yet,” said the latter; “but he’s liable to be here any minute now.”

“Oh, yes,” said P. Sybarite brightly, after a brief pause—­“Mr. Penfield, of course.  Sorry I can’t wait.”

“Well, you’ll want your hat before you go—­won’t you?”

Placing an incredulous hand upon the crown of his head, P. Sybarite realised that it was covered exclusively with hair.

“I must have put it down somewhere upstairs,” he murmured in panic.

“Mebbe you left it with Pete before you went up.”

“Perhaps I did.”

Turning back to the lounge, he entered to find it deserted save for the somnolent old gentleman and the hospitable Pete, but for whom P. Sybarite would probably never have known the delirious joy of that internal celebration or found the courage to risk his first bet.

And suddenly the fifty-cent tip previously bestowed upon the servitor seemed, to one unexpectedly fallen heir to the princely fortune then in P. Sybarite’s pockets, the very nadir of beggarliness.

“Pete,” said he with owlish gravity, “I begin to see that I have done you an inexcusable injustice.”

Giggling, the negro scratched his head.

“Well, suh,” he admitted, “Ah finds that gemmun gen’ly does change they min’s erbout me, aftuh they done cut er melon, like.”

With the air of an emperor, P. Sybarite gave the negro a twenty-dollar bill.

“And now,” he cut short a storm of thanks, “if you’ll be good enough to give me just one more glass of champagne, I think I’ll totter home.”