"Sorry, boss."

Mr. Hayn screwed the cap on his fountain-pen, replaced it in his pocket, and raised his eyes from the desk for the first time. What he saw made him sag back with astonishment. "Who on earth have you been picking a quarrel with?" he demanded.

The Snake certainly looked the worse for wear. A bandage round his head covered one eye, and the eye that was visible was nearly closed up. His lips were bruised and swollen, and a distinct lack of teeth made him speak with a painful lisp.

"Was it Harrigan's crowd?" suggested Hayn.

Ganning shook his head. "A bloke we met on the train coming back from Brighton last night."

"Were you alone?"

"Nope; Ted and Bill were with me. And Mario."

"And what was this man trooping around? A regi­ment?"

"He was alone."

Hayn blinked. "How did it happen?"

"We thought he was a sucker," explained Snake disgustedly. "Smart clothes, gold cigarette-case, gold-mounted stick, gold watch-and a wad. He showed us his wad. Two-fifty, he said it was. We couldn't let that go, so we got him into a game of cards. Poker. He said he didn't know anything about the game, so it looked safe enough-he struck us as being that sort of mug. We were geeing him along nicely right up to ten minutes or so before Victoria, and we'd let him take fifty off us. He was thinking himself the greatest poker player in the world by then, you'd have said. Then we asked him to be a sport and give us a chance of getting our money back on a couple of big jackpots with a five-pound ante. He agreed, and we let him win the first one. We all threw in after the first rise. 'What about making it a tenner ante for the last deal?' I said, tipping the wing to the boys. He wasn't too keen on that, but we jollied him along, and at last he fell for it. It was his deal, but I shuffled the broads for him."