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restorative Reason returned to its throne, assuring
him that there was absolutely no cause for alarm. The Darts tourney, Reason
pointed out, was to take place to-morrow morning. He had the Horace Davenport
ticket on his person. It followed then as doth the night the day, concluded Reason,
that he would be able to restore the missing trinkets the moment he got home
to-morrow afternoon.
    He was
just musing affectionately on Horace Davenport and feeling how fortunate he was
in holding all rights to a dart hurler of his incomparable skill, when his
attention was attracted by a deep sigh in his vicinity, and looking up he saw
Horace approaching. And with a sudden sharp alarm he noted that something
seemed to have gone wrong with the Davenport works. The other’s face was pale
and drawn and the eyes behind their tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses were like
those of a dead fish.
    “Stap
my vitals, Horace,” he cried, deeply concerned, for naturally what he would
have liked to see on the eve of the Darts tournament was a rosy-cheeked,
bright-eyed Horace Davenport, full of pep, ginger and the will to win. “You
look a bit down among the wines and spirits. What’s the matter?”
    “Well,
I’ll tell you,” said Horace Davenport. “You know Valerie Twistleton.”
    “Yes.”
    “You
know I’m engaged to her.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well,
that is where you make your ruddy error,” said Horace Davenport. “I’m not. We
have parted brass rags.”
    “Why on
earth?”
    “Well,
if you ask me, I think she loves another.”
    “What
rot!”
    “I don’t
agree with you. We quarrelled about a mere trifle, and I maintain that no girl
would have handed a man his hat for a trifle as mere as that, unless she had
already decided to hitch on elsewhere and was looking out for a chance of
giving him the gate.”
    Bingo’s
tender heart was touched, of course, but he could not forget Horace’s great
mission.
    “Too
bad,” he said. “But you mustn’t brood on it, old man, or you’ll go putting
yourself off your stroke.”
    “My
stroke?”
    “For
the Darts binge to—morrow.”
    “Oh,
that? I shall not be competing,” said Horace dully. “I’m going to scratch.”
    Bingo
uttered a quick howl like that of a Labrador timber wolf which has stubbed its
toe on a jagged rock.
    “Sker-ratch?”
    “Exactly
what Oofy Prosser said when I told him, in the same agitated voice. But I’m
dashed if I can see why you’re all so surprised,” said Horace. “Is it likely,
after what has happened, that I would be in any mood for bunging darts?”
    A
blinding light had flashed upon Bingo. I doubt if there are half-a-dozen
fellows in the club, or ten at the outside, more capable than he of detecting
funny business when such is afoot. He remembered now, what he ought to have
remembered before, that Oofy, despite his colossal wealth, had always been a
man who would walk ten miles in tight shoes to pick up even the meanest sum
that was lying around loose.
    At the
thought of how the subtle schemer had chiselled him out of that flyer his soul
blazed in revolt, and it was with an eloquence of which he had not supposed
himself capable that he now began to plead with Horace Davenport to revise his
intention of scratching for the Darts tournament. And so moving were the words
in which he pictured the ruin which must befall him, should the other remove
his name from the list of competitors, that Horace’s better self awakened.
    “This
opens up a new line of thought,” said Horace. “I didn’t know Oofy had sold you
that ticket. Well, to oblige you, Bingo, I will go through the hollow formality
of entering the arena. But build no hopes on that. You can’t aim darts when
your heart is broken. My eyes will be so dim with unshed tears that I doubt if
I’ll be able to get a single double.”
    As if
the word “double” had touched a chord in his mind, he moved off in the
direction of the bar, and Bingo, clutching his head in both hands, started to
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