'Now, boy,' said B., 'you know where you're to watch. Here's the cigar-case; you are, as soon as you see the palkee coming, to run back and give the case to me publicly. I shall then ask you where you found it, and you must reply: "Come with me, sir, and I will show"--you understand.' 'Yes, sar, understand.' After this little private dialogue, B. returned, saying as he rejoined his friends: 'It's odd I can't find the case in the palkee, so I have ordered the boy to go home for it.' 'What a fuss you make about the case, B.; you can get cigars and plenty here, so make yourself easy, man, and take up a cue,' said G. 'There will be four of you without me; I'll look on.' 'I'll be hanged if you do!' returned Mitchel, 'we'll draw lots; lowest figure sits out.' 'I'm afraid,' said Mr. H., 'that you must not count on me; you must make up your match without me; you know that I bargained with you, G., that I was to leave about half-past nine.' 'All right,' said G., 'it's a long way off that now; there's oceans of time for a match.' 'Well,' said H., 'if I do play, the match must be a short one, say fifty.' 'Don't be alarmed, man,' said G., 'there's plenty of time for a hundred.' 'No, no,' said H., 'I can't play if it's more than a fifty.' 'Come,' said G., 'split the difference, we'll make it seventy.' 'So be it then,' said H.; 'let us make our sides at once. Mitchel is the best amongst us, therefore whoever has him must give ten points.' 'Agreed,' said G., 'but who sits out? There's the Doctor, Captain B., and Henry B.' 'I really can't play till I hear about my cigar-case,' said H. B. 'Upon my word, B., you make more bother about the confounded case than it's worth,' said Mitchel. 'I shouldn't wonder,'said G., 'that he has got some notes on pink paper richly perfumed in that same case, instead of cigars.' 'Oh, that's it, is it!' said H.; 'I really began to think he was getting off his head. I never knew him to care two straws about a cigar-case before.' 'It's very hard,' said B., with a pretended mock-modest air, 'that a man can't look for his cigar-case without having all his little peccadillos inquired into, and without, as it were, being hauled up for summary judgment. I say "live and let live;" you go on with your game, and I'll go on with mine.'