too taut to quiver. The color left his face, and the moisture
fled his lips. His projected article, his promise to Blix, all
the jollity of the afternoon, all thought of time or place, faded
away as the one indomitable, evil passion of the man leaped into
life within him, and lashed and roweled him with excitement. His
world resolved itself to a round green table, columns of tri-
colored chips, and five ever-changing cards that came and went and
came again before his tired eyes like the changing, weaving colors
of the kaleidoscope. Midnight struck, then one o'clock, then two,
three, and four. Still his passion rode him like a hag, spurring
the jaded body, rousing up the wearied brain.

Finally, at half-past four, at a time when Condy was precisely
where he had started, neither winner nor loser by so much as a
dime, a round of Jack-pots was declared, and the game broke up.
Condy walked home to the uptown hotel where he lived with his
mother, and went to bed as the first milk-wagons began to make
their appearance and the newsboys to cry the morning papers.

Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, occurred that strange
trick of picture-making that the overtaxed brain plays upon the
retina. A swift series of pictures of the day's doings began to
whirl THROUGH rather than BEFORE the pupils of his shut eyes.
Condy saw again a brief vision of the street, and Blix upon the
corner waiting to cross; then it was the gay, brisk confusion of
the water-front, the old mate's cabin aboard the whaleback,
Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion cloth over a gallery rail, the
golden balcony, the glint of the Stevenson ship upon the green
Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, the delightful and picturesque
confusion of the deserted Chinese restaurant; Blix again, turning