"Willingly."
"Gentlemen, I beg you to give notice that I will lay the cards down after six games."
I asked for new packs of cards, and put three hundred sequins on the table. The captain wrote on the back of a card, "Good for a hundred sequins, O'Neilan," and placing it with my gold I began my bank.
The young officer was delighted, and said to me,
"Your bank might be defunct before the end of the sixth game."
I did not answer, and the play went on.
At the beginning of the fifth game, my bank was in the pangs of death; the young officer was in high glee. I rather astonished him by telling him that I was glad to lose, for I thought him a much more agreeable companion when he was winning.
There are some civilities which very likely prove unlucky for those to whom they are addressed, and it turned out so in this case, for my compliment turned his brain. During the fifth game, a run of adverse cards made him lose all he had won, and as he tried to do violence to Dame Fortune in the sixth round, he lost every sequin he had.
"Sir," he said to me, "you have been very lucky, but I hope you will give me my revenge to-morrow."
"It would be with the greatest pleasure, sir, but I never play except when I am under arrest."