‘Anything,’ Edgar replied carelessly, as the polite proprietor proceeded to get the desired refreshment.
For a few minutes, Edgar sat watching his incongruous companions, as he drank sparingly of the champagne before him. The gathering was of the usual run of such places, mostly foreigners, as befitted the neighbourhood, and not particularly desirable foreigners at that. On the green table the stakes were apparently small, for Edgar could see nothing but silver, with here and there a piece of gold. At a smaller table four men were playing the game called poker for small stakes; but what particularly interested Edgar was a young man deep in the fascination of écarté with a man who to him was evidently a stranger. The younger man—quite a boy, in fact—was losing heavily, and the money on the table here was gold alone, with some bank-notes. Directly Edgar saw the older man, who was winning steadily, he knew him at once; only two nights before he had seen him in a gambling-house at the West End playing the same game, with the same result. Standing behind the winner was a sinister-looking scoundrel, backing the winner’s luck with the unfortunate youngster, and occasionally winning a half-crown from a tall raw-looking American, who was apparently simple enough to risk his money on the loser. Attracted by some impulse he could not understand, Edgar quitted his seat and took his stand alongside the stranger, who was losing his money with such simple good-nature.
‘Stranger, you have all the luck, and that’s a fact. There goes another piece of my family plate. Your business is better’n gold-mining, and I want you to believe it,’ drawled the American, passing another half-crown across the table.
‘You are a bit unlucky,’ replied the stranger, with a flash of his white teeth; ‘but your turn will come, particularly as the young gentleman is really the better player. I should back him myself, only I believe in a man’s luck.’
‘Wall, now, I shouldn’t wonder if the younker is the best player,’ the American replied, with an emphasis on the last word. ‘So I fancy I shall give him another trial. He’s a bit like a young hoss, he is—but he’s honest.’
‘You don’t mean to insinuate we’re not on the square, eh?’ said the lucky player sullenly; ‘because, if that is so’——
‘Now, don’t you get riled, don’t,’ said the American soothingly. ‘I’m a peaceable individual, and apt to get easily frightened. I’m a-goin’ to back the young un again.’
The game proceeded: the younger man lost. Another game followed, the American backing him again, and gradually, in his excitement, bending further and further over the table. The players, deep in his movements, scarcely noticed him.
‘My game!’ said the elder man triumphantly. ‘Did you ever see such luck in your life? Here is the king again.’
The American, quick as thought, picked up the pack of cards and turned them leisurely over in his hand. ‘Wall, now, stranger,’ he said, with great distinctness, ‘I don’t know much about cards, and that’s a fact. I’ve seen some strange things in my time, but I never—no, never—seed a pack of cards before with two kings of the same suit.’