Charles smiled and turned his card.  The poet turned his—­and won a thousand.

“Good shot!” Charles murmured, pretending not to mind, though he detests losing.

“Inspiration!” the poet mused, and looked once more abstracted.

Charles dealt again.  The poet watched the deal with boiled-fishy eyes.  His thoughts were far away.  His lips moved audibly.  “Myrtle, and kirtle, and hurtle,” he muttered.  “They’ll do for three.  Then there’s turtle, meaning dove; and that finishes the possible.  Laurel and coral make a very bad rhyme.  Try myrtle; don’t you think so?”

“Do you stake?” Charles asked, severely, interrupting his reverie.

The poet started.  “No, pass,” he replied, looking down at his card, and subsided into muttering.  We caught a tremor of his lips again, and heard something like this:  “Not less but more republican than thou, Half-hearted watcher by the Western sea, After long years I come to visit thee, And test thy fealty to that maiden vow, That bound thee in thy budding prime For Freedom’s bride—­”

“Stake?” Charles interrupted, inquiringly, again.

“Yes, five thousand,” the poet answered dreamily, pushing forward his pile of notes, and never ceasing from his murmur:  “For Freedom’s bride to all succeeding time.  Succeeding; succeeding; weak word, succeeding.  Couldn’t go five dollars on it.”

Charles turned his card once more.  The poet had won again.  Charles passed over his notes.  The poet raked them in with a far-away air, as one who looks at infinity, and asked if he could borrow a pencil and paper.  He had a few priceless lines to set down which might otherwise escape him.

“This is play,” Charles said pointedly. “Will you kindly attend to one thing or the other?”

The poet glanced at him with a compassionate smile.  “I told you I had inspirations,” he said.  “They always come together.  I can’t win your money as fast as I would like, unless at the same time I am making verses.  Whenever I hit upon a good epithet, I back my luck, don’t you see?  I won a thousand on half-hearted and a thousand on budding; if I were to back succeeding, I should lose, to a certainty.  You understand my system?”

“I call it pure rubbish,” Charles answered.  “However, continue.  Systems were made for fools—­and to suit wise men.  Sooner or later you must lose at such a stupid fancy.”

The poet continued.  “For Freedom’s bride to all ensuing time.”

“Stake!” Charles cried sharply.  We each of us staked.

“Ensuing,” the poet murmured.  “To all ensuing time.  First-rate epithet that.  I go ten thousand, Sir Charles, on ensuing.”

We all turned up.  Some of us lost, some won; but the poet had secured his two thousand sterling.

“I haven’t that amount about me,” Charles said, in that austerely nettled voice which he always assumes when he loses at cards; “but—­I’ll settle it with you to-morrow.”