“At any rate I’ll get the telescope and have it ready,” replied he, as he passed into the dining-room; returning, bearing in his hand one of those long marine glasses so much used at that time. “This is a remarkably fine glass,” said he to the Don.
The Don was seated behind Alice’s chair, helping her to play her hand at whist, if that name be applicable to a rattling combination of cards, conversation, and bursts of laughter.
“Last summer,” continued Mr. Whacker, “I counted with it a hen and seven small chickens on the Poythress’s lawn—”
“Mr. Frobisher!” cried Alice. “There you are trumping my ace!”
“Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker, with reproachful surprise.
“And, Uncle Tom, would you believe it,—he has made three revokes already? What ought to be done to such a partner?”
Jones, who ought to have been back at the University long since, was, on the contrary, seated at a neighboring card-table. He remembered the scrape that Charley had gotten him into on Christmas Eve.
“I don’t think,” said he, soliloquizing, as he slowly dealt out the cards, “that I could love a partner who revoked.”
A smile ran around the tables. Charley bit his lip.
“What, Charley!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker. “The ace of trumps second in hand, and you had another!”