“Ah! yes,” said Leech, turning away to try to hide his surprise from Thurston.
“Then, gentlemen, have some of our cigars?” Steve took up the box, lit a cigar himself and coolly handed them around.
As he offered them to Thurston the little Lieutenant said:
“Captain, the honors are yours.”
The next moment Steve tossed his cigar contemptuously out of the door.
“Come over to my office, gentlemen; I have a box that a gentleman has sent me. I think they will have a better flavor than these. Good-evening, Lieutenant Leech. Will you join us, gentlemen?” This was to Middleton and Thurston, and the invitation was accepted.
They adjourned to Steve’s “law-office,” where they proceeded to while away the hours in a manner which has sweetened, if not made, many an armistice. Fortune from the start perched herself on Steve’s side as if to try and compensate him for other and greater reverses; and at last little Thurston, having lost the best part of a month’s pay, said that if Leech’s cigars were not as good as Steve’s, they were, at least, less expensive.
“You fellows don’t know any more about poker than you do about joking,” said Steve, imperturbably, as he raked in a pot. “If I’d known about this before, I wouldn’t have taken that oath. I’d have done like McRaffle there. This is too easy.”
“You play just as much as I do,” said McRaffle, quickly.