Nugent had laid his tobacco-pouch on the seat beside him while he was speaking; it was covered with crimson plush, and his monogram, sumptuously worked in gold thread, adorned the flap. I thought it, on the whole, rather vulgar.
“I am thankful that I was not decoyed into playing,” I said. “I must say all my sympathies are with Mr. Barrett; he did not want to play in the least, and I am sure he does not look as if he were enjoying himself.”
“I deny that he was decoyed into playing,” said Nugent, argumentatively, lighting his cigarette and leaning back again with an air of leisurely satisfaction; “and, anyhow, he is not a case in point. The mere fact that you are an American is about fifty points in your favour. You would probably lick all our heads off by the sheer force of instinct and power of intimidation.” He took up his tobacco-pouch, and looked at it absently. “Yes, you’re a great nation. For instance, this very fine thing is of Yankee origin, and I don’t believe the worker of it had ever done anything of the kind before. It was done, as the Irishman played the fiddle, ‘by main strength,’ and yet look at it!”
“It’s very gay,” I said, regarding it with chilly disfavour.
Nugent looked at me meditatively, as he put it back into his pocket. “Does that mean professional jealousy?” he asked. “Are you also a worker of tobacco-pouches?”
“I can’t work any more than I can play billiards,” I said, with some enjoyment of the admission.
“No? What a pity!” said Nugent, a little inattentively. “Do you know, I once taught an American girl billiards, and after she had played for a week, she used to beat me pretty nearly every time.”
“But I think I told you before I was not an American girl,” I said energetically. “Every one here persists in calling me American, and I am nothing of the kind; I am Irish!”
“It seems to me you are very anxious to ‘go back on’ your native land,” he said, looking at me through his half-closed eyelids; “you won’t allow yourself to be called American, and you don’t even speak the language.”
“That is the regular British fallacy. You all expect us to talk through our noses, and say, ‘Wal, stranger.’”