“Can’t say as to that,” replied the Captain; “all I know is, that I’m devilishly minus.”
“Who won, then?” inquired Spoonbill.
“Oh!” returned the Captain, after a slight pause, “I suspect—Chowser—he has somebody’s luck and his own too!”
“I think he must have mine,” said the Ensign, with a faint smile, as the alternations of the last night’s Blind Hookey came more vividly to his remembrance. “What did I lose to you, Cushion?” he continued, in the hope that his memory had deceived him.
The Captain’s pocket-book was out in an instant.
“Sixty-five, my dear fellow; that was all. By-the-bye, Spooney, I’m regularly hard up; can you let me have the tin? I wouldn’t trouble you, upon my soul, if I could possibly do without it, but I’ve got a heavy bill coming due to-morrow, and I can’t renew.”
The Honorable Ensign sank back on his pillow, and groaned impotently. Rallying, however, from this momentary weakness, he raised his head, and, after apostrophising the spirit of darkness as his best friend, exclaimed, “I’ll tell you what it is, Cushion, I’m thoroughly cleaned out. I haven’t got a dump!”
“Then you must fly a kite,” observed the Captain, coolly. “No difficulty about that.”
This was merely the repetition of counsel of the same friendly nature previously urged. The shock was not greater, therefore, than the young man’s nerves could bear.
“How is it to be done?” asked the neophyte.