Amidst much chatter and laughter the table was cleared, the red cloth spread in place of the white, and the domino-box reached down from the kitchen mantelpiece. The serious business of the evening had begun.
Mr. Brunger had only one evening a week at home, and this he liked to divide between his family and his favourite game, giving the major part of his attention to the game.
At one time he had been in the habit of asking in some friend or acquaintance to join him; but, since the arrival of Bindle, it had become an understood thing that the same quartette should meet each Saturday evening.
Mrs. Brunger would make a pretence of crocheting. The product possessed one thing in common with the weaving of Penelope, in that it never seemed to make any appreciable progress towards completion.
Mr. Brunger devoted himself to the rigours of the game, and Elsie would flutter between the two players, bursting, but never daring, to give the advice that her superior knowledge made valuable.
Bindle kept the party amused, that is, except Mr. Brunger, who was too wrapped up in the bone parallelograms before him to be conscious of anything else.
Elsie would as soon have thought of missing her Sunday dinner as those Saturday evenings, and Mrs. Brunger soon found that a new and powerful weapon had been thrust into her hand.
"Very well, you go to bed at seven on Saturday," she would say, which was inevitably followed by an "Oh, mums!" of contrition and docility.
"Out! You're beaten, uncle," cried Elsie, clapping her hands, and enjoying the look of mock mortification with which Bindle regarded the dominoes before him.
Mr. Brunger leaned back in his chair, an expression of mild triumph modifying his heavily-jowled countenance. It was remarkable how consistently Mr. Brunger was victor.