"Nothing. I go. The courage is yours. I opened with a pair of jacks."
Pendarvon showed them. I doubt if he had anything more. I doubt if Archie had as much. But, still, ten thousand. The average man is not inclined to go as far as that upon a pair of jacks. I could see that Pendarvon felt that he had been bluffed. It put his back up. He meant to be even with Archie--and he was.
"Let me clearly understand what unlimited poker means. Does it mean that I'm at liberty to put half a sheet of notepaper on the table and say I raise a million?"
Archie fired up at the innuendo Pendarvon's words seemed to convey.
"What do you mean by half a sheet of notepaper? Do you suggest that my IOU is nothing but half a sheet of notepaper?"
"Not a bit of it. Why should I? My dear Archie, don't get warm. Only we are none of us millionaires. I know I'm not. Ten thousand pounds is a considerable sum to me. We, all of us, are playing on the nod. Before you go any further suppose we name a date by which all paper must be redeemed."
"I'm willing."
"Suppose we say that it must be redeemed within a week?"
"I'm willing again."
I also acquiesced. I saw the force of what he said, and I saw the pull which it would give him over Archie. Where Archie was likely to find such a sum as ten thousand pounds within a week was more than I knew, and, unless I greatly erred, more than he knew either. Pendarvon is a man of substance. His stannary dues alone are supposed to average thirty or forty thousand pounds a year, and if it came to a question of ready-money not improbably he could buy up Archie lock, stock, and barrel, and scarcely feel that he had made a purchase.