"Oh, well! If you feel like that, we had better go on; but your fastidiousness may cost you something," Stannard remarked, and Deering hit Jimmy's back.
"You're a sport; I like you! Play up and play straight's your rule."
Jimmy was flattered, although he doubted Deering's soberness. He did play straight, and when he won he did not go off with a walletful of his friends' money. All the same, Jackson's bored look annoyed him, since it rather indicated that he was willing to indulge Jimmy than that he noted his scrupulous fairness. Jimmy resolved to banish the fellow's languor, and when they went back to the card table demanded that they put up the stakes. Jackson agreed resignedly, and they resumed the game.
The room got hotter and the cigar-smoke was thick. Sometimes Stannard went to the ice-pail and mixed a cooling drink. Jimmy meant to use caution, but his luck had turned, and excitement parched his mouth. By and by Stannard, who was dealing, stopped.
"Your play is wild, Jimmy," he remarked. "I think you have had enough."
Jimmy turned to the others. His face was red and his gesture boyishly theatrical.
"I play for sport, not for dollars. I don't want your money, and now you're getting something back, we'll put up the bets again."
"Then, since your wad is nearly gone, somebody must keep the score," said Jackson, and Stannard pulled out his note-book.
Jimmy took another drink and tried to brace up. His luck, like his roll of bills, was obviously gone, but when he was winning the others had not stopped, and he did not want them, so to speak, to let him off. When he lost he could pay. But this was not important, and he must concentrate on his cards. The cards got worse and as a rule the ace he thought one antagonist had was played by another. At length Stannard pushed back his chair from the table.
"Three o'clock and I have had enough," he said, and turned to Jimmy. "Do you know how much you are down?"