would you mind telling me what exactly the game was played for?"

"Knew you'd not understand at once. My word, it was not too bally
simple. If I won I'd a hundred pounds. If I lost I'd to give you up to
them but still to receive a hundred pounds. I suspect the Johnny's
conscience pricked him. Thought you were worth a hundred pounds, and
guessed all the time he could do me awfully in the eye with his poker.
Quite set they were on having you. Eyebrow chap seemed to think it a
jolly good wheeze. She didn't, though. Quite off her head at having
you for that glum one who does himself so badly."

Dazed I was, to be sure, scarce comprehending the calamity that had
befallen us.

"Am I to understand, sir, that I am now in the service of the
Americans?"

"Stupid! Of course, of course! Explained clearly, haven't I, about the
club flush and the three eights. Only three of them, mind you. If the
other one had been in my hand, I'd have done him. As narrow a squeak
as that. But I lost. And you may be certain I lost gamely, as a
gentleman should. No laughing matter, but I laughed with them--except
the funny, sad one. He was worried and made no secret of it. They were
good enough to say I took my loss like a dead sport."

More of it followed, but always the same. Ever he came back to the
sickening, concise point that I was to go out to the American
wilderness with these grotesque folk who had but the most elementary
notions of what one does and what one does not do. Always he concluded
with his boast that he had taken his loss like a dead sport. He became