“Limited loo! call that a game! No one has got the pluck to play now-a-days. Now I wouldn’t mind having a bit of a gamble to-night, but I ain’t come down to limited loo,” he said with a loud laugh, and a sneer at the doctor.
“What do you want to play?” Gorman said, speaking to Bowker, rather to the surprise of those who were present.
“Well, I’d play a game of poker if any one would sit down who knew how to play, as wasn’t afraid of the game,” Bowker growled out.
“I know how to play, and I’m not afraid of the game either, Mr Bowker,” the doctor answered quietly enough, but with a note in his voice that some of us believed meant mischief.
The rest of us did not offer to join in the play, from the first we fancied it would be a pretty warm game. It was anything but a friendly one, for it seemed to be rather a duel than a mere gamble, and we felt sure that when the two men sat down at the table, each one promised himself that if he could manage it, the other should look back with considerable regret to that little game of poker.
The two men were a great contrast to each other. Bowker was a heavy, coarse-looking, bull-necked man of over six feet high, with a straggling yellow beard growing over his huge red cheeks and jowls. Gorman was a slight, dark man, clean shaven except a twisted moustache, with a pair of sharp black eyes. Both men occasionally played high, though they were not habitual gamblers, and the lookers-on expected to see some sensational playing.
“What do you say to making the blind five pounds?” said the doctor, as he sat down and smiled at his opponent.
“Thought you weren’t afraid of the game! but you know what you can afford,” the other answered.
“Ten if you like,” said the doctor, and then the game began.
For some time the luck ran with provoking evenness; both parties backed their hands with considerable freedom, but after a couple of hours’ play neither had lost or won very much.