The rotund gentleman dealt a card face downwards to each of his opponents, who then looked at their cards and staked on them, by pushing little piles of gold or silver forward.
Then the dealer turned up his own card, and gave the amount of the respective stakes to those players whose cards were of higher value than his own, whilst sweeping all other moneys to swell his own pile.
A simple means, forsooth, of getting rid of any superfluity of cash.
"Art winning, Endicott?" queried Lord Walterton as, he stood over the other man, looking down on the game.
Endicott shrugged his fat shoulders, and gave an enigmatic chuckle.
"I pay King and Ace only," he called out imperturbably, as he turned up a Queen.
Most of the stakes came to swell his own pile, but he passed a handful of gold to a hollow-eyed youth who sat immediately opposite to him, and who clutched at the money with an eager, trembling grasp.
"You have all the luck to-night, Segrave," he said with an oily smile directed at the winner.
"Make your game, gentlemen," he added almost directly, as he once more began to deal.
"I pay knave upwards!" he declared, turning up the ten of clubs.