E. F. Benson - PAYING GUESTS

"Five no trumps," said Mrs. Holders with extraordinary distinctness.

Colonel Chase sorted his hand, and found a richness. There was a brilliant array of seven diamonds lacking the king; there were the king and queen of hearts, there was the king of spades by himself, and he thought that with so splendid a hand, this was a wonderful opportunity to give the rebellious woman a good lesson, and establish himself for ever on his rightful throne. He doubled and Mrs. Holders redoubled.

At that, the jovial laugh to the accompaniment of which Colonel Chase was preparing to say to his partner that there was Potarge for two, died in his throat, though he was far from realising that Nemesis, who no doubt had been patiently listening to his lectures on bridge for the last month or two, was licking her hungry lips. He put down his cigarette, and led the ace of diamonds. Miss Kemp displayed her hand. It contained the ace and queen of spades, the king of diamonds with an infinitesimal satellite, three clubs, including the knave, and nothing else of the slightest importance.

Mrs. Holders gave that annoying little squeal of laughter that grated on Colonel Chase's nerves, and discarded a small heart on his noble ace of diamonds. Somehow that made him feel much better. Little he knew that he was destined to be much worse. But at present he felt better.

"That's the danger of declaring no trumps with a suit missing, Mrs. Holders," he said. "I've fallen into that trap before now myself. Let me see: five I think."

He jovially slapped the trick down.

"One more trick, partner," he said, "and then the fun begins."

"That was a beautiful double of yours," said Mrs. Oxney. "Wonderful!"

"Not so bad; not so bad," said he. "I'm a highwayman this time, Mrs. Holders, exacting penalties for your rashness in going unguarded."

"Quite," said Mrs. Holders, in a terrible voice.

"Well, I'll just clear that king of diamonds out of the way," said Colonel Chase, "and then we'll settle down and be comfortable."

He cleared the king out of the way, and by way of retaliation Mrs. Holders cleared his king of spades out of the way with dummy's ace and continued with the queen of the same suit. Colonel Chase having no more, and being constitutionally unable to part with one of those winning diamonds threw out a small club. Anything would do.

The Colonel's jaw might have been observed by any careful bystander to drop about half an inch the moment he had done so. He saw that he had left his queen of clubs with only one guard. Perhaps he had settled down to be comfortable, but nobody could possibly have guessed that. Mrs. Holders then led the knave of clubs from her partner's hand, Mrs. Oxney played something of extreme insignificance, and then Mrs. Holders sat and thought. She pulled a card out of her hand, and held it poised. She put it back. She pulled out another card and played the king of clubs. The Colonel played a small one.

Colonel Chase began to perspire.

Mrs. Holders pulled out a card again and put it back. A most annoying habit. Then she pulled it out again and played it. It was the ace of clubs. Colonel Chase put on the queen (it couldn't be helped), and Mrs. Oxney discarded something pathetically unimportant in another suit.

"What? No more clubs?" said Colonel Chase in a voice of intense indignation.

"No, I wish I had," said poor Mrs. Oxney. "Isn't it bad luck? And I've got such a quantity of--oh, I suppose I mustn't say what."

"I don't mind," said Mrs. Holders, who thereupon played out the ace of hearts, and followed it with processions of winning clubs and winning spades.

Colonel Chase said "Pshaw!" Cataracts of diamonds had been spouting from his hand, and rivers of hearts from his partner's.

"But don't we get any more?" said Mrs. Oxney. "All my beautiful hearts and all your beautiful diamonds?"

"Fifty for little slam," said Mrs. Holders quite calmly, though her eyebrows had almost disappeared, "and thirty for aces. Then two hundred for my contract, doubled and redoubled, and two hundred more for the extra trick, and below six times two hundred. I think that's all. Dear me!"

This was intolerable.

"Not bridge at all," said Colonel Chase. "With not a single diamond in your hand, and spades headed by the knave. Madness! I would have doubled on my hand every time."

Mrs. Holders knew all that perfectly well. She knew also, (and knew that Colonel Chase knew) that if he had not unguarded his queen of clubs. . . . But then he had, and she went on adding up.

"And two is seven," she said, "and eight is fifteen, and six is twenty-one, and seven is twenty-eight, and seven is thirty-five, and six is forty-one and carry four, and two and three and five is fourteen and four is eighteen--"

"Yes, I make that," said Miss Kemp, licking her pencil, "and oh, just look at the hundreds!"

After they had sufficiently looked at the hundreds, the general reckoning disclosed that Colonel Chase had to pay everybody all round, and he disbursed sums varying from threepence to Mrs. Oxney up to the staggering figure of three and ninepence due to Miss Kemp. All the evenings on which everybody had paid to him were forgotten in general commiseration and nobody dreamed of consoling him with the encouragement he often administered to others, and told him that his game was improving so much that very likely he would soon win it all back again. Mrs. Oxney could scarcely be induced to accept her threepence, and she had to steel herself to the sacrifice by the glad hope that she would lose ten times that sum to him tomorrow. On other nights Colonel Chase usually stood for a long time in front of the fire-place when the rubbers were over, richly rattling coppers in his trousers' pocket, and giving them a few hints about declarations to take up to bed, but now there was no chink of bullion to endorse his wisdom, and he made as short work of his glass of whiskey and water (called 'grog' or 'nightcap') as he had made of the cross-word, and left the victors on the field of battle. Miss Kemp gave him time to get upstairs, in order to avoid the indelicacy of seeing a gentleman open his bedroom door, and perhaps disclose pyjamas warming by the fire, and then followed him in some haste, since her father (there was no indelicacy about that) always expected her to come and talk to him, when he had got to bed, about his evening symptoms, or read to him till he felt sleepy. She knew she was unusually late to-night, and it was possible that he had punished her by already putting out his light. This pathetic proceeding, he was sure, wrung her with agonies of remorse.

No such severity had been inflicted to-night; he was sitting up in bed with a book in front of him; and a fur tippet belonging to Florence round his neck for the protection of the glands of the throat. On the table beside him was the thermos flask filled with hot milk, in case he felt un-nourished during the night, the glass jug of lemonade made with saccharine instead of sugar in case he felt thirsty, and the clock with the luminous hands.

"I am late, Papa, I'm afraid," she said. "We had a most exciting rubber which would not come to an end."

His face wore its most martyred expression: he glanced at the clock which showed the unprecedented hour of eleven.

"Surely my clock is fast," he said.

"No; it is eleven," she said. "Shall I read to you?"

"Far too late: far, far too late. I shall be good for nothing in the morning as it is."

"You would like to go to sleep then?" she asked. "Shall I put out your light?"

"Indeed, I should very much like to go to sleep," he said, "but it is already long past my usual hour for going to sleep, and as you know, if I am not asleep by eleven, I often lie awake half the night. No doubt you were absorbed in your game, and could not spare a thought to me. Very natural. Two hours bridge! I was wrong to expect that perhaps it would occur to you--but no matter."