“Our old combat, I suppose?” said Paul, laughing. “Well, I 'm always ready.”
And down they sat, hour after hour finding them still in the same hard straggle, fortune swinging with its pendulous stroke from side to side, as though to elicit the workings of hope and fear in each alternately. Meanwhile they drank freely, and from time to time arose to eat at the side-table in that hurried and greedy way that only gamblers eat, as though vexed at the hanger that called them from their game. They were both too great proficients in play to require that absorption of faculties inferior gamblers need. They could, and did, talk of everything that came uppermost, the terms of the game dropping through the conversation like the measured booming of great guns amid the clattering crash of musketry. Luck for some time had favored Holy Paul; and while he became blander, softer, and more benign of look, Grog grew fierce, his eyes fiery, and his words sharp and abrupt. Classon's polished courtesy chafed and irritated him, but he seemed determined to control his anger as far as he might, and not give his adversary the transient advantage of temper. Had spectators been admitted to the lists, the backers would have most probably taken the Churchman. His calm countenance, his mild, unexcited eye, his voice so composed and gentle, must have made Paul the favorite.
“We shall scarcely have time for another game, Kit,”—he'd have called him Grog, but that he was losing,—“I perceive the day is beginning to break.”
“So am I, for the matter of that,” said Davis, with a bitter laugh. “You have won—let me see—forty-six, and twenty-seven, and a hundred and twelve,—that was a 'thumper,'—and thirty-four, besides that loose cash there,—about two hundred and forty or fifty naps, Master Paul. A very pretty-night's work, and more profitable than preaching, I take it.”
“Regarding the matter as a mere monetary question—”
“No gammon,—cut the cards,” broke in Davis; “one game must finish us. Now, shall we say double or quits?”
“If you really wish me to speak my candid mind, I 'd rather not.”
“I thought as much,” muttered Grog to himself; and then, in a louder voice, “What shall it be then.—one-hundred and fifty? Come, even if you should lose, you'll get up winner of a clean hundred.”