"For all that, Cuthbert had Lescolette’s checks to the aggregate of nearly $13,000 after a couple of hours’ play. The friends of the two men at the other table knocked off to watch the play at the two-handed table. Lescolette, while he showed no nervousness, indicated by a somewhat deepened earnestness of manner that he didn’t relish being $13,000 or anything like it in the hole. After he had dashed off the check that put him that amount out, he sent me to the café for a lunch, and the two men and their friends spent an hour or so over the salads and wines.
"’We’ll resume, then?’ said Lescolette, and they began play again. It was about 1 o’clock in the morning. Cuthbert had taken three pints of wine to wash down his luncheon, and then a rather heavy swig of cognac. When they resumed there was too much color in his cheeks for a successful poker player. Lescolette had drunk only Apollinaris.
"Cuthbert split open a new deck when play was resumed, and riffled them rather uncertainly.
"’Damn a new deck of machine-burnished cards,’ said he. ’Joe, you limber them up and deal this hand.’
"Lescolette took the deck and riffled them for fully two minutes. Then he spread them out all over the table, tossed them about every which way for a bit, straightened them together in a bunch, riffled them again, and passing them over to Cuthbert for the cut, dished them out.
"Cuthbert was one of those poker players who pick up their cards one by one. It is terribly bad form, that, but Cuthbert, with his nervous disposition, was addicted to it. He picked up his first card this time and said, 'Ah, a good beginning.’ When he looked at his second card, said he, ’Better yet.’ He made no comment upon his third card, but he flushed and gave a start that was perceptible to every man in the room save Lescolette, who was scanning his own hand. His fourth card took the flush out of his cheeks and steadied him. He went pale when he looked at it. He forgot to pick up his fifth card until Lescolette, looking up, remarked: ’Phil, are you strong enough to beat me with only four cards?’ Then Cuthbert picked up his fifth card mechanically. It was a bad break, his leaving his fifth card untouched until reminded of it. It announced, simply, that he had pat fours. But he didn’t seem to think of this.