When he awoke he heard loud voices overhead. At first he supposed he
was at home, and that the voice was only Mr. Flathers enjoying one of
his periodical backslidings. But Dick Sheeley's voice recalled him;
Dick was mad at somebody, and when Dick got mad he fought. Not a boy
on Billy-goat Hill but would have faced death to see the ex-
prizefighter in a row. It was a distinction that placed one at a bound
in the front ranks of juvenile aristocracy.

Chick crept from his hiding-place and listened. The voices grew louder
and more excited. Drawn as by a magnet he slipped up the stairs step
by step. At the top was an off-set in the hall, a corner in which he
could hide, unseen from the open door beyond. There he lay on his
stomach and wriggled forward until his eye was on a line with the
crack in the half-open door.

Three men were sitting around a card table, two of them with their
backs to him; and Dick facing them with his jaw set and his teeth
showing. All three were talking at once, and Dick was the most excited
of the three.

"You didn't have no ace of spades to show down! You discarded it. You
know you did, you--cheat!" He had risen and was shaking his fist in
the face of the thin young man.

"It's a lie, you common cur!" cried the other wildly, but before the
words were well out of his mouth, Sheeley's mighty right arm had shot
out across the table and struck him in the face.

"Sheeley! For God's sake, don't you see Dillingham's drunk?" protested