Archie’s sympathetic nature was perturbed.—­“What’s the matter, laddie?” he enquired.  “You would seem to be feeling a bit of an onion this bright morning, what, yes, no?  I can see it with the naked eye.”

Mr. Blake grunted sorrowfully.

“I’ve had a knock, Mr. Moffam.”

“Tell me all, friend of my youth.”

Mr. Blake, with a jerk of his thumb, indicated a poster which hung on the wall behind the counter.  Archie had noticed it as he came in, for it was designed to attract the eye.  It was printed in black letters on a yellow ground, and ran as follows: 

Clover-leaf social and Outing club

Grandcontest

Pie-eating
championship of the West side

SpikeO’DOWD
(Champion)

v.

Blake’sunknown

For A purse of $50 and side-bet

Archie examined this document gravely.  It conveyed nothing to him except—­what he had long suspected—­that his sporting-looking friend had sporting blood as well as that kind of exterior.  He expressed a kindly hope that the other’s Unknown would bring home the bacon.

Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.

“There ain’t any blooming Unknown,” he said, bitterly.  This man had plainly suffered.  “Yesterday, yes, but not now.”

Archie sighed.

“In the midst of life—­Dead?” he enquired, delicately.

“As good as,” replied the stricken tobacconist.  He cast aside his artificial restraint and became voluble.  Archie was one of those sympathetic souls in whom even strangers readily confided their most intimate troubles.  He was to those in travail of spirit very much what catnip is to a cat.  “It’s ’ard, sir, it’s blooming ’ard!  I’d got the event all sewed up in a parcel, and now this young feller-me-lad ’as to give me the knock.  This lad of mine—­sort of cousin ’e is; comes from London, like you and me—­’as always ’ad, ever since he landed in this country, a most amazing knack of stowing away grub.  ’E’d been a bit underfed these last two or three years over in the old country, what with food restrictions and all, and ’e took to the food over ’ere amazing.  I’d ’ave backed ’im against a ruddy orstridge!  Orstridge!  I’d ’ave backed ’im against ’arff a dozen orstridges—­take ’em on one after the other in the same ring on the same evening—­and given ’em a handicap, too!  ’E was a jewel, that boy.  I’ve seen him polish off four pounds of steak and mealy potatoes and then look round kind of wolfish, as much as to ask when dinner was going to begin!  That’s the kind of a lad ’e was till this very morning.  ’E would have out-swallowed this ’ere O’Dowd without turning a hair, as a relish before ’is tea!  I’d got a couple of ’undred dollars on ’im, and thought myself lucky to get the odds.  And now—­”