"If you decline, of course the matter ends." "I never like to be bantered," returned Carlton.

"If a man were to dare me to jump from the housetop, it would be as much as I could do to restrain myself." "I've got three hundred in my pocket," said Ellis, "and I'm prepared to see the last dollar of it." "Good stuff in you, my boy!" and Carlton laid his hand upon his shoulder in a familiar way.

"It would hardly be fair not to give you a chance to get back where you were.

So here's for you, win or lose, sink or swim." And the two men left the tavern together.

We need not follow them, nor describe the contest that ensued.