Starrett rose, sneering. There had been a subtle change to-night in
his customary attitude of parasitic good-fellowship.

"I'm tired, too!" he exclaimed viciously. "Tired of your infernal
whims and insults. You're as full of inconsistencies as a lunatic.
When you ought to be insulted, you laugh, and when a fellow least
expects it, you blaze and rave and stare him out of countenance. And
I'm tired of drifting in here nights at your beck and call, to be sent
home like a kid when your mood changes. Mighty amusing for us! If
you're not vivisecting our lives and characters for us in that
impudent, philosophical way you have, you're preaching a sermon that
you couldn't--and wouldn't--follow yourself. And then you end by
messing everybody's cards in a heap and sending us home with the last
pot in Dick Wherry's pocket whether it belongs there or not. I tell
you, I'm tired of it."

Carl laughed, a singularly musical laugh with a note of mockery in it.

"Who," he demanded elaborately, "who ever heard of a treasonous
barnacle before? A barnacle, Starrett, adheres and adheres, parasite
to the end as long as there's liquid, even as you adhered while the
ship was keeled in gold. Nevertheless, you're right. I'm all of what
you say and more that you haven't brains enough to fathom. And some
that you can't fathom is to my credit--and some of it isn't. As, for
instance, my inexplicable poker _penchant_ for you."

To Starrett, hot of temper and impulse, his graceful mockery was
maddening. Cursing under his breath, he seized a glass and flung it
furiously at his host, who laughed and moved aside with the litheness
of a panther. The glass crashed into fragments upon the wall of the