"There is no necessity for me to try my luck, Silvester. I know it before I try. I knew it before I came into this room. You fellows drawing was but a mere matter of form. I am to draw the Honour of the Club. It is written in the skies."
His voice rang through the room. I noticed that Pendarvon tugged at his beard, and stared at him, as if he could not make him out. But I, knowing the man as I did, knew his mood. Slipping his hand quickly into the bag, in an instant he drew it out. Without glancing at the card which he had drawn he held it up to us between his fingers. "See! The Honour of the Club!"
It was.
There was silence. Approaching the card to his face, Archie touched it with his lips.
"Welcome, thou dreadful thing!" He half rose to his feet. "Gentlemen, did I not tell you? As you perceive, the fortune of war is mine!"
I stood up as he sat down.
"Bumpers, gentlemen." They filled and rose. "Beaupré, feeling, as we must, that the Honour of the Club could not possibly be in better or in more deserving hands, we tender you our best congratulations on your good fortune as you know full well."
Then they all said in a sort of chorus as they drank, "We do."
"You have the prospect, nay, the certainty, of good sport before you, Beaupré--sport of a rare and of a most excellent kind. I speak from my own experience. That this day month you may have as pleasant a story to tell as mine--Beaupré, I can wish you no better wish than that."
Then Archie spoke. He held the Honour of the Club out in front of him while he was speaking.