These revelations were interrupted by Reggie suggesting bridge.
He once taught a Colonial Governor the game at a Swiss mountain hotel, and the Pilot, who was with him, said he made enough to keep them in smokes for a week.
‘Reggie’s getting too uppish about bridge,’ I remarked, as Accrington produced the cards, ‘he thinks he’s rather an authority.’
‘Nobody,’ replied Reggie, severely, ‘nobody is an authority on any game till he can be sure of winning money off his opponents.’
‘How many does it take to play bridge?’ asked Fatty, peevishly, from the window-seat; ‘I hate these card games, they’re always so dull.’
‘Then you shan’t be dull, Henry dearest,’ said Freddy, landing upon Fatty’s lower chest, and then, as he led him by his starboard ear into Accrington’s bedder, ‘Come with your Frederick, and let us cuddle together.’
As they disappeared, Accrington, moved by reminiscences of former quiet evenings, called after them uneasily:
‘Kindly refrain from throwing my pyjamas out of the window, and do not, O do not, spread water about the floor.’
‘The only complaint I have to make against the owner of this public-house,’ said Reggie, as the Pilot dealt in the slow and solemn manner peculiar to him, ‘is that when I came in at the ordinary excursion hour of 1.15 this morning, and demanded a “corpse reviver,” the licensed victualler, who had retired to bed, refused to provide me with anything.’
‘Freddy, who is doing contracts, says that if you don’t get what you want, you may take what you can get, so I took three oranges, a brandy-bottle, and my leave. It was only after Maberly had borrowed the bottle, and served it out to seven men whom he found sleeping in his rooms on his return from the theatre, that Accrington arrived in a costume that was hardly decent, to remark that I had taken the methylated spirits. Of course we went round to see what could be done, but, as Maberly said they had got through three-quarters of the bottle, we decided to leave them in peace.’