“Well, well; pounds and fives,” said Vignolles.  “It’s better than pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game.  Of course a man could win something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate so quickly it amounts to nothing.  You’ve got the first dummy, Scarborough.  Where will you sit?  Which cards will you take?  I do believe that at whist everything depends upon the cards,—­or else on the hinges.  I’ve known eleven rubbers running to follow the hinges.  People laugh at me because I believe in luck.  I speak as I find it; that’s all.  You’ve turned up an honor already.  When a man begins with an honor he’ll always go on with honors; that’s my observation.  I know you’re pretty good at this game, Moody, so I’ll leave it to you to arrange the play, and will follow up as well as I can.  You lead up to the weak, of course.”  This was not said till the card was out of his partner’s hand.  “But when your adversary has got ace, king, queen in his own hand there is no weak.  Well, we’ve saved that, and it’s as much as we can expect.  If I’d begun by leading a trump it would have been all over with us.  Won’t you light a cigar, Moody?”

“I never smoke at cards.”

“That’s all very well for the club, but you might relax a little here.  Scarborough will take another cigar.”  But even Mountjoy was too prudent.  He did not take the cigar, but he did win the rubber.  “You’re in for a good thing to-night, I feel as certain of it as though the money were in your pocket.”

Mountjoy, though he would not smoke, did drink.  What would they have, asked Vignolles.  There was champagne, and whiskey, and brandy.  He was afraid there was no other wine.  He opened a bottle of champagne, and Mountjoy took the tumbler that was filled for him.  He always drank whiskey-and-water himself,—­so he said, and filled for himself a glass in which he poured a very small allowance of alcohol.  Major Moody asked for barley-water.  As there was none, he contented himself with sipping Apollinaris.

A close record of the events of that evening would make but a tedious tale for readers.  Mountjoy of course lost his fifty pounds.  Alas! he lost much more than his fifty pounds.  The old spirit soon came upon him, and the remembrance of what his father was to do for him passed away from him, and all thoughts of his adversaries,—­who and what they were.  The major pertinaciously refused to increase his stakes, and, worse again, refused to play for anything but ready money.  “It’s a kind of thing I never do.  You may think me very odd, but it’s a kind of thing I never do.”  It was the longest speech he made through the entire evening.  Vignolles reminded him that he did in fact play on credit at the club.  “The committee look to that,” he murmured, and shook his head.  Then Vignolles offered again to take the dummy, so that there should be no necessity for Moody and Scarborough to play against each other, and offered to give one point every other rubber as the price to be paid for the advantage.  But Moody, whose success for the night was assured by the thirty pounds which he had in his pocket, would come to no terms.  “You mean to say you’re going to break us up,” said Vignolles.  “That’ll be hard on Scarborough.”