Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

Not only the doctor, but every one in the room, felt pretty sure that he had a bad hand, and that the finish of the game had come.

Every face was turned to Bowker; the lookers-on wondering what he would do, and how he would take his bad luck. For a second he seemed to be trying to think. Then a dazed look came into his face, and he half stood up, and then fell heavily forward, bringing the table down with him. There was a paraffin lamp on the table, which smashed as it fell, and in a second the cloth and table was blazing. There was a rush forward of the men looking on. Bowker was lifted on to a sofa, and a doctor, who on his way home from a case had dropped into the club, seeing it open, began to attend to him.

“By Jove! the place will be burnt down!” some one cried, and some men rushed out of the room to get water, while others tried to put out the fire with rugs.

Gorman stood holding his cards in his hand, looking first at his opponent and then at the blazing card-table.

“Well, how are we going to play this out? This is a damn pretty thing,” he said. He did not care about Bowker’s state of health, nor did he care whether the building were burnt down or not.

“See here, where are his cards? we have got to see this out. Twenty-four thou, is no laughing matter. He never raised, so we had better show our cards. What’s he got?” Gorman said, as he stood with his cards in hand.

The fire was put out. Bowker was on the sofa looking rather bad, but the doctor seemed to be perfectly careless about everything except the stake he felt sure he had won.

“Never mind about the game, man, now; maybe the poor fellow will never get round,” one of the men who was looking at Bowker said.

“Beg pardon, but I do care about the game; it’s all very well his going into a fit, but that don’t alter the fact that we’ve got to play this out. Where are his cards?”

“You want to see his hand, do you? Well, there you are,” some one said, holding up a charred mass which was all there was left of the cloth that had been on the table, or the rest of the cards, except the four knaves and a queen which Gorman held in his hand.