The judge turned his bovine countenance on Edgerton. The only anomaly in it seemed to be his eyebrows. Cows have no eyebrows.
"I'm sorry," said Edgerton.
The judge seemed sorry, too, but he shuffled the two packs in his enormous and hairy hands, dealt, and deposited the surplus in a pile with a single card separate and face upward—the ace of hearts.
Mrs. Lorrimore promptly picked it up, laid down three aces, four fours, a small sequence interiorly made possible by a joker, and sat back triumphantly with her depleted suit in her gemmed fingers, which were pressed comfortably to an ample bosom.
"Discard," rumbled the judge.
"Oh, I beg pardon!" She laughed, and laid down a nine.
Nobody ever wants a nine, somehow. The judge snorted, helped himself, discarded, and turned his heavy countenance on his hostess.
"Dear me," she said in her humble little voice, "I—I'm afraid—afraid I'm going out!"
"What!" thundered his honor. "Nobody ever goes out first hand, madam!"
But she timidly did that very thing to the suppressed fury of his honor, who had cherished a long sequence, according to rule, and was further nursing the other joker and three kings.