So the stakes were increased to an amount that made my hair stand up stiffer even than usual, and the game went on.  Behold! a marvel came to pass.  How it happened I do not know, unless Marnham had brought the wrong cards by mistake or had grown too fuddled to understand his partner’s telegraphic signals, which I, being accustomed to observe, saw him make, not once but often, still we won!  What is more, with a few set-backs, we went on winning, till presently the sums written down to our credit, for no actual cash passed, were considerable.  And all the while, at the end of each bout Marnham helped himself to more brandy, while the doctor grew more mad in a suppressed-thunder kind of a way.  For my part I became alarmed, especially as I perceived that Anscombe was on the verge of breaking into open merriment, and his legs being up I could not kick him under the table.

“My partner ought to go to bed.  Don’t you think we should stop?” I said.

“On the whole I do,” replied Rodd, glowering at Marnham, who, somewhat unsteadily, was engaged in wiping drops of brandy from his long beard.

“D——­d if I do,” exclaimed that worthy.  “When I was young and played with gentlemen they always gave losers an opportunity of revenge.”

“Then,” replied Anscombe with a flash of his eyes, “let us try to follow in the footsteps of the gentlemen with whom you played in your youth.  I suggest that we double the stakes.”

“That’s right!  That’s the old form!” said Marnham.

The doctor half rose from his chair, then sat down again.  Watching him, I concluded that he believed his partner, a seasoned vessel, was not so drunk as he pretended to be, and either in an actual or a figurative sense, had a card up his sleeve.  If so, it remained there, for again we won; all the luck was with us.

“I am getting tired,” drawled Anscombe.  “Lemon and water are not sustaining.  Shall we stop?”

“By Heaven! no,” shouted Marnham, to which Anscombe replied that if it was wished, he would play another hand, but no more.

“All right,” said Marnham, “but let it be for double or quits.”

He spoke quite quietly and seemed suddenly to have grown sober.  Now I think that Rodd made up his mind that he really was acting and that he really had that card up his sleeve.  At any rate he did not object.  I, however, was of a different opinion, having often seen drunken men succumb to an access of sobriety under the stress of excitement and remarked that it did not last long.

“Do you really mean that?” I said, speaking for the first time and addressing myself to the doctor.  “I don’t quite know what the sum involved is, but it must be large.”

“Of course,” he answered.