"'Well, if you ain't a case of perambulating, lingering suicide, Fatty, I never saw one,' said he to his friend.
"'It's all one,' was the reply. 'It's too much punishment to give 'em up, and it wouldn't make any difference anyhow.'
"I had meanwhile dished the hands out, and after my two friends had drawn cards and I made a small bet they threw up their hands.
"'Draw, eh?' said the emaciated man, addressing Dunwoody. 'How about making it four-handed?'
"'Oh, you'd better take it out in sleeping, Fat,' replied Dunwoody. 'You look just a bit tired, and we're going to make a night of it, most likely, with whisky trimmings. You can't do that very well without hurting yourself, and if you came in and we got into you you'd feel like playing until you evened up, and 'ud get no rest. Better not come in, Fat. Better hit your bunk for a long snooze. We'll have breakfast together when they hitch on the dining car at Council Bluffs.'
"'I haven't sat into a game of draw for a long while,' said Dunwoody's friend, 'and I'd rather play than eat.'
"There was a bit of pathos in that remark, I thought, and I kicked Dunwoody under the table.
"'Well, jump in then, Fatty,' said Dunwoody, and the poor chap drew a chair up to the table with a look of pleasure on his drawn, hollow face, with its two brightly burning spots on the cheekbones.
"It soon became apparent that Dunwoody's fear about our 'getting into' the consumptive didn't stand any show whatever of being realized. The emaciated man was an almighty good poker player, nervy, cool, and cautious, and yet a good bit audacious at that. I caught him four-flushing and bluffing on it several times, but he got my money right along in the general play, all the same, and after an hour's play he had the whole three of us on the run. I was about $100 to the rear, and Dunwoody and Danforth had each contributed a bit more than that to the consumptive's stack of chips. The fact was, he simply outclassed the three of us as a poker player—and, by the way, I wonder why it is that men that have got something the matter with their lungs are invariably such rattling good poker players? I've noticed this right along. I never yet sat into a poker game with a man that had consumption in one stage or another of it that he didn't make me smoke a pipe for a spell. That would be a good one to spring on some medical sharp for an explanation.
"By the time midnight came around Dunwoody's friend with the pulmonary trouble had won about half as much again from us, and Dunwoody began to look at his watch nervously. The three of us were taking a little nip at frequent intervals, just enough to brush the cobwebs away, but the sick-looking man didn't touch a drop. He smoked one cigarette after another, however, inhaling the smoke into his shrunken lungs, and the sight made all of us feel sorry, I guess, for the foolhardiness of the man. Finally Dunwoody looked at his watch and then raised his eyes and took a survey of the countenance of the consumptive, which was overspread with a deep flush. The consumptive's eyes were extraordinarily bright, too.