"Always, ALWAYS come, when--
when you feel you must."
"It gets so bad sometimes, Blix," he confessed with abject self-
contempt, "that when I can't get some one to play against I'll sit
down and deal dummy hands, and bet on them. Just the touch of the
cards--just the FEEL of the chips. Faugh! it's shameful."
The day following, Sunday, Condy came to tea as usual; and after
the meal, as soon as the family and Victorine had left the pair
alone in the dining-room, they set about preparing for their
morrow's excursion. Blix put up their lunch--sandwiches of what
Condy called "devilish" ham, hard-boiled eggs, stuffed olives, and
a bottle of claret.
Condy took off his coat and made a great show of stringing the
tackle: winding the lines from the spools on to the reels, and
attaching the sinkers and flies to the leaders, smoking the while,
and scowling fiercely. He got the lines fearfully and wonderfully
snarled, he caught the hooks in the table-cloth, he lost the
almost invisible gut leaders on the floor and looped the sinkers
on the lines when they should have gone on the leaders. In the
end Blix had to help him out, disentangling the lines foot by foot
with a patience that seemed to Condy little short of superhuman.
At nine o'clock she said decisively:
"Do you know what time we must get up in the morning if we are to
have breakfast and get the seven-forty train? Quarter of six by
the latest, and YOU must get up earlier than that, because you're
at the hotel and have further to go.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95