Keep one hand on the cards, sort of toying with 'em, see what I mean ?" He scattered the piled chips loosely about the table, and called to a black waiter: "Here, George, put one of those wine glasses on his left." The wine glass was placed.

"Now kind of slump down in your chair, like you saw the hollowness of it all--see what I mean ?" Merton Gill thought he saw.

He exhaled smoke, toyed contemptuously with the cards at his right hand and, with a gesture of repulsion, pushed the wine glass farther away.

He saw the hollowness of it all.

The spirit of wine sang in his glass but to deaf ears.