“Pounds and fives, I suppose,” said Sewell; and the others bowed, and the game began.
As little did Cave like three-handed whist, but he was in no mood to oppose anything; for, like many men who have made an awkward speech, he exaggerated the meaning through his fears, and made it appear absolutely monstrous to himself.
“Whatever you like,” was therefore his remark; and he sat down to the game.
Sewell was a skilled player; but the race is no more to the swift in cards than in anything else,—he lost, and lost heavily. He undervalued his adversaries too, and, in consequence, he followed up his bad luck by increased wagers. Cave tried to moderate the ardor he displayed, and even remonstrated with him on the sums they were staking, which, he good-humoredly remarked, were far above his own pretensions; but Sewell resented the advice, and replied with a coarse insinuation about winners' counsels. The ill-luck continued, and Sewell's peevishness and ill-temper increased with every game. “What have I lost to you?” cried he, abruptly, to Cave; “it jars on my nerves every time you take out that cursed memorandum, so that all I can do is not to fling it into the fire.”
“I'm sure I wish you would, or that you would let me do it,” said Cave, quietly.
“How much is it?—not short of three hundred, I'll be bound.”
“It is upwards of five hundred,” said Cave, handing the book across the table.
“You'll have to wait for it, I promise you. You must give me time, for I am in all sorts of messes just now.” While Cave assured him that there was no question of pressing for payment,—to take his own perfect convenience,—Sewell, not heeding him, went on: “This confounded place has cost me a pot of money. My wife, too, knows how to scatter her five-pound notes; in short, we are a wasteful lot. Shall we have one rubber more, eh?”
“As you like. I am at your orders.”
“Let us say double or quits, then, for the whole sum.”