two o'clock in the morning before
`` Sure thing it has , '' agreed another of the men . `` You certainly have been playing in rotten luck , but when it does change -- oh , baby ! '' As the five men entered one of the cardrooms several of the inevitable spectators drew away from the other games and approached their table , for it was a matter of club gossip that these five played for the largest stakes of any coterie among the habitues of the card-room . It was two o'clock in the morning before Bince disgustedly threw his cards upon the table and rose . There was a nasty expression on his face and in his mind a thing which he did not dare voice -- the final crystallization of a suspicion that he had long harbored , that his companions had been for months deliberately fleecing him . Tonight he had lost five thousand dollars , nor was there a man at the table who did not hold his I. O. U 's . for similar amounts .