“Now, gentlemen, just for fun, which is the knave?” And Bobby, without a check, selected the correct cardboard. “Again, gentlemen, if you please, it will bring my hand into practice; shall we say half a crown? Thanks!” and again, with the accuracy of a truffle dog, Bobby discovered the card.
Again and again was this farce perpetrated, till Bobby’s winnings amounted to £4, and in his generosity he seemed loth to take advantage of such a greenhorn.
George meanwhile had caught the infection and bet and won as the stakes were made higher.
“Five pounds for once, gentlemen? I think I’ve earned my revenge,” pleaded Jerry, and fickle Fortune as if of the same opinion, decided in his favour.
Any one but the veriest tyro would have deemed this a favourable opportunity to stop, but George, as we have seen, had his own ideas of honour; the fever, moreover, was upon him, and, producing the contents of his own pocket, he again backed his opinion.
Gone in a twinkling, he next turned to Bobby, and the lad at once proceeded to supply him with his cash. Meanwhile their original acquaintance whispered imploringly to George to have done with it, but he might as well have spoken to the winds. “D— it, man, if I’m cleaned out of ready money I’ve still my ring and sleeve links; go on, sir,” he continued to Jerry. “I’ll bet my jewellery against a tenner.”
But fortune was still against our friends, and divested of his trinkets, in his turn he appealed to his opponent.
“Come, sir, I gave you your revenge, now give me mine, and anything I lose I’ll give you my cheque for.”
But Jerry was of a practical nature; cheques were occasionally stopped, and officious detectives might come to hear of it, so he decided to decline the tempting offer, but promised revenge on the morrow. The first stranger meanwhile came to the rescue. “I know you’re a gentleman,” he whispered, “and mayn’t like to lose those things, why not offer the gent to redeem them to-morrow?”
The idea seemed a happy one, and the party dispersed, on the understanding that at twelve the following day they should all meet at the Pump in Leicester Square.