"Ah, you great, lazy hulk!" growled Abinger amiably. "Sitting here in your shirt sleeves, and neglecting the decencies of civilised life." They distributed themselves upon chairs and proceeded to add to the density of the atmosphere.
"Yes, I know," said Bramham, pushing back his chair and regarding them—"a boiled shirt with a flopping front to it like yours, and poker with a lot of perpetual growlers. What made you leave the delights of the Club to come and spoil my mail-night?"
"Capron," said Abinger laconically.
"What! again? A repetition of last night?"
Bramham shot a glance at Carson, but the latter's face expressed nothing more than ennui: he had put his head far back in his chair, and was smoking ceilingwards, following the gyrations of the bat with a contemplative eye.
"A repetition of every night until he gets knocked on the head by some fellow whose temper isn't so sweet as mine." Abinger's smile was not seductive. "He as good as told me that I had an ace up my sleeve, and later, he suggested that Carson had better not play for such high stakes in case he shouldn't find it convenient to pay. We discovered that we had a pressing appointment with you: but we left him Ferrand to insult."
Bramham got up and went to the sideboard, bringing glasses and decanters to the table.
"Capron isn't built for too much corn," he remarked. "Water-gruel is his tack, and he ought to be put on to it before somebody hurts him."
They all drank and smoked again in reflective concord.
"It is a pity," continued Bramham, with a dreamful Socratic air, "that some fellows' tastes and appetites are not matched by their physical abilities. There's an odd jumble of material in our construction! It would be an advantage and make life much more interesting, now, if all our anatomical parts were standardised, so that every weak or worn portion could be taken out and renewed from a stock controlled by the highest power, who would only replace the affected piece if one had made a decent effort to retain one's mind and body in a healthy condition."