"Indeed?" She looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then added: "I
should think you would have seen lost chances; and doing things a second
time might do them better."

"I never missed chances," he replied, simply: "never except twice, and
then--"

"And then?"

"Then it was to give the other fellow a chance."

"Oh!" There was a kind of dubiousness in her tone. He noticed it. "You
can hardly understand, Miss Raglan. Fact is, it was one of those deals
when you can make a million, in a straight enough game; but it comes out
of another man--one, maybe, that you don't know; who is playing just the
same as you are. I have had a lot of sport; but I've never crippled any
one man, when my engine has been dead on him. I have played more against
organisations than single men."

"What was the most remarkable chance you ever had to make a million, and
did not?"

He threw back his head, smiling shrewdly. "When by accident my enemy got
hold of a telegram meant for me. I was standing behind a frosted glass
door, and through the narrow bevel of clear glass I watched him read it.
I never saw a struggle like that. At last he got up, snatched an
envelope, put the telegram inside, wrote my name, and called a messenger.
I knew what was in the message. I let the messenger go, and watched that
man for ten minutes. It was a splendid sight. The telegram had given him