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dirty light of dawn evaded the thick curtains and fought on the floor with the feebled electric glow that Coleman, in the midst of play, lurched his chest heavily upon the table. Some chips rattled to the floor. “I’ll call you,” he murmured, sleepily.
    “Well,” replied a man, sternly, “three kings.”
    The other players with difficulty extracted five cards from beneath Coleman’s pillowed head. “Not a pair! Come, come, this won’t do. Oh, let’s stop playing. This is the rottenest game I ever sat in.
    Let’s go home. Why don’t you put him to bed, Billie?”
    When Coleman awoke next morning, he looked back upon the poker game as something that had transpired in previous years. He dressed and went down to the grill-room. For his breakfast he ordered some eggs on toast and a pint of champagne. A privilege of liberty belonged to a certain Irish waiter, and this waiter looked at him, grinning. “Maybe you had a pretty lively time last night, Mr. Coleman?”
    “Yes, Pat,” answered Coleman, “I did. It was all because of an unrequited affection, Patrick.” The man stood near, a napkin over his arm. Coleman went on impressively. “The ways of the modern lover are strange. Now, I, Patrick, am a modern lover, and when, yesterday, the dagger of disappointment was driven deep into my heart, I immediately played poker as hard as I could and incidentally got loaded. This is the modern point of view. I understand on good authority that in old times lovers used to languish. That is probably a lie, but at any rate we do not, in these times, languish to any great extent. We get drunk. Do you understand, Patrick?”
    The waiter was used to a harangue at Coleman’s breakfast time. He placed his hand over his mouth and giggled. “Yessir.”
    “Of course,” continued Coleman, thoughtfully. “It might be pointed out by uneducated persons that it is difficult to maintain a high standard of drunkenness for the adequate length of time, but in the series of experiments which I am about to make I am sure I can easily prove them to be in the wrong.”
    “I am sure, sir,” said the waiter, “the young ladies would not like to be hearing you talk this way.”
    “Yes; no doubt, no doubt. The young ladies have still quite medieval ideas. They don’t understand. They still prefer lovers to languish.”
    “At any rate, sir, I don’t see that your heart is sure enough broken. You seem to take it very easy.”
    “Broken!” cried Coleman. “Easy? Man, my heart is in fragments. Bring me another small bottle.”

CHAPTER VI .
    Six weeks later, Coleman went to the office of the proprietor of the Eclipse. Coleman was one of those smooth-shaven old-young men who wear upon some occasions a singular air of temperance and purity. At these times, his features lost their quality of worldly shrewdness and endless suspicion and bloomed as the face of some innocent boy. It then would be hard to tell that he had ever encountered even such a crime as a lie or a cigarette. As he walked into the proprietor’s office he was a perfect semblance of a fine, inexperienced youth. People usually concluded this change was due to a Turkish bath or some other expedient of recuperation, but it was due probably to the power of a physical characteristic.
    “Boss in?” said Coleman, “Yeh,” said the secretary, jerking his thumb toward an inner door. In his private office, Sturgeon sat on the edge of the table dangling one leg and dreamily surveying the wall. As Coleman entered he looked up quickly. “Rufus,” he cried, “you’re just the man I wanted to see. I’ve got a scheme. A great scheme.” He slid from the table and began to pace briskly to and fro, his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets, his chin sunk in his collar, his light blue eyes afire with interest. “Now listen. This is immense. The Eclipse enlists a battalion of men to go to Cuba and fight the Spaniards under its own flag — the Eclipse flag. Collect trained officers from