hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many thieves among honest
men as there is among thieves. You read about such things in the papers,
Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other."

A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray that
he noted it, though he said--

"What was you thinkin' about, Jim?"

Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment.

"Nothin'," he answered. "Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was--all
them jools at his house. What made you ask?"

"Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all."

The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle on
the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not that
he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in
themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life
they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind and
sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded
wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was
appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all too
impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before him,
fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again.

"I guess we might as well count 'em," Matt said suddenly, tearing himself
away from his own visions. "You watch me an' see that it's square, because
you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim. Understand?"