"How many have you?"
"Ten thousand."
"Ten thousand cigars!" We stared at him.
"That's a lot of ameliorating influence," one of the officers laughed. "But, in spite of it, I'll have to charge you on nine thousand, nine hundred—unless a hundred belong to each of your friends. Everyone's entitled to bring in a hundred free."
"A hundred are mine," Tommy spoke up at once. "I haven't won cigars so fast, ever! Jack, you for a hundred. Gates, you, too. Colonel," he turned to the officer—out of the Army he scattered the titles of Colonel, Judge, Governor and Parson with a free hand—"suppose you all take a hundred each. It'll be a whole lot cheaper for Sir Walter, here!"
The professor was giggling.
"They have cost me nothing," he cried, "for last night I have won almost a thousand dollars at that wretched place—see, here is plenty with which to pay!"
And a fortunate thing it was that he had, being called on for something in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars.
The officer—Hardwick, by name—and his associate were good fellows, as I have said. They had greeted us as congenial spirits and, probably on this account, I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he leaned into the light and slowly looked over the money Monsieur had given him. The rest of us were conversing in a more or less distrait fashion till this unpleasant duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then on another, and so through the lot. Hesitatingly he touched Monsieur's arm, asking:
"Is this the money you won last night?"