“Johnny,” he said to one of them, “somehow I feel awfully down in the mouth to-night.”

“That’s unusual with you, then,” was the cheerful reply.  “For you are the pluckiest loser I ever saw.  But I must say your luck of late has been just something frightful.”

“Well, I’m down altogether—­in luck, in finances, and spirits; and I’m going to pull myself up a peg.  Come and keep me company.  I’m going to order a magnum of Perrier Jouet of ’74, and I only want a glass or two; you must help me out, or some of those other fellows.”

“That’s a pretty piece of extravagance!” the other exclaimed.  “A magnum—­to get a couple of glasses out of it; like an otter taking a single bite from a salmon’s shoulder.  Never mind, old chap; I’m in.  I hate champagne at this time of night; but I don’t want you to kill yourself.”

As they sat at supper, with this big bottle before them, Lionel said,

“It will be a bad thing for me if young Miles doesn’t show up to-night.”

“I should have thought it would have been an excellent thing for you if Miles had never entered this club,” his companion observed.

“That’s true,” said Lionel, rather gloomily.  “But my only chance now is to get some of my property back, and I can only get it back from him.  You fellows are no use to me—­not if I were winning all along the line.”

“Look here, Moore,” said the young man, in a more serious tone, “you may say it’s none of my business; but the way you and that fellow Miles have been going on is perfectly awful.  If the committee should hear about it, there will be a row, and no mistake!”

“My dear boy,” Lionel protested, as he pushed the unnecessary bottle to his neighbor, “the committee have nothing to do with understandings that are settled outside the club.  You don’t see Miles or me handing checks for L200 or L300 across the table.  How can the committee expel you for holding up three fingers or nodding your head?”

“Well, then, you’ll excuse me saying it, but he’s a young ass, to gamble in that fashion,” Johnny remarked, bluntly.  “What fun does he get out of it?  And it’s quite a new thing with him—­that’s the odd business.  I know a man who was at Merton with him; and certainly Miles got into a devil of a scrape—­which cut short his career there; but it had nothing to do with gambling.  He never was that way inclined at all; it’s a new development, since he joined this club.  Well, I suppose he can do what he likes.  The heir to a baronetcy and such a place as Petmansworth can get just as much as he wants from the Jews.”

“My good man, he doesn’t need to go to the Jews,” said Lionel, with grim irony.

“Where does he get all that money from?  Do you think his father is fool enough to encourage him in such extravagance?  I should hope not!  At the same time I wish I had a father tarred with something of that same brush.”

“Where does he get all the money from?  So far he has got it from me,” Lionel said, with a bit of a shrug.  “He doesn’t need to go to his father, or to the Jews either, when he can plunder me.  And such a run of luck as he has had is simply astounding—­”