I did not dare to latch it, for they were
already in the room and might hear me.
"This is the spot for us," came in Spencer's most jovial tones.
"Big table, whisky handy, cards right here in my pocket. Wait,
till I strike a light!"
But the lightning anticipated him. As he spoke, the walls which
surrounded me, the walls which surrounded them, leapt into glaring
view and I heard the second voice cry out:
"I don't like that! Let's wait till the storm is over. I can't
play with such candles as those flaring about us."
"Damn it! you won't know what candles you are playing by when once
you see the pile I've got ready for you. I'm in for a big bout.
You have ten dollars and I have a thousand. I'll play you for that
ten. If, in the meantime, you get my thousand, why, it'll be
because you're the better man."
"I don't like it, I say. There, SEE!"
A flood of white light had engulfed the house. My closet, with its
whitewashed walls flared about me like the mouth of a furnace.
"See, yourself!" came the careless retort, and with the words a
gas-jet shot up, then two, then all that the room contained.
"How's that? What's a flash more or less now!"
I heard no answer, only the slap of the cards as they were flung
onto the table; then the clatter of a key as it was turned in some
distant lock and the quick question:
"Rum, or whisky. Irish or Scotch?"
"Whisky and Irish."
"Good! but you'll drink it alone."
The bottles were brought forward and they sat down one on each
side of the dusty mahogany table.
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