“Now, I’ll let you see,” he said. “This time we’ll make it fifty.”
He won twice more in succession, and the men closed in about the table, while, for the dealer knew when to strike, the glasses went round again, and in the growing interest nobody quite noticed who paid for the refreshment. Then, while the dollars began to trickle in, the lad flung a bill for a hundred down.
“Go on,” he said a trifle huskily. “To-night you can’t beat me!”
Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room. One of them signed to the hotel-keeper.
“What’s going on? The boys seem kind of keen,” he said.
The other man laughed a little. “Ferris has struck a streak of luck, but I wouldn’t be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He has had as much as he can carry already, and I don’t want anybody broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn’t know when to stop.”
Witham glanced at his companion, who nodded. “The young fool,” he said.
They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his winnings again, and Witham laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.
“Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show,” he said. “You seem to have done tolerably well, and it’s usually wise to stop while the chances are going with you.”
The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men, who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.