“If they did, it might certainly be a bit awkward,” Zertho acquiesced. “But many people are ready to forgive the little peccadilloes of anybody with a title.”
“Ah! that’s so. It’s money, money always,” the luckless gamester observed with a sigh.
“Well, hang it, you can’t grumble. You’ve won and lost a bit in your time,” his friend said, casting himself upon a couch near, stroking his dark beard, and blowing a cloud of smoke from his full lips. “If you’re such an idiot as not to play any more, well you, of course, have to suffer.”
“Play, be hanged!” cried Brooker, impetuously. “My luck’s gone. The last time I played trente-et-quarante, I lost a couple of ponies.”
“But the system is—”
“Oh, the system is all rot. The Johnnie who invented it ought to have gone and played it himself. He’d have been a candidate for the nearest workhouse within three days.”
“Well, we brought it off all right more than once,” Zertho observed, with a slight accent.
“Mere flukes, all of them.”
“You won at one coup thirty-six thousand francs, I remember. Surely that wasn’t bad?”
“Ah! that was because Liane was sitting beside me. It’s wonderful what luck that girl has.”