"Not a bit," said Lord Charles, again hoisting himself in his chair. "I am hoping to have a very good dinner to-night, and another one to-morrow. Now I am going to play bridge. I don't know whether you would care for a rubber, Mr. Howard?" For some reason Mr. Perry seemed to desire me to accept this invitation. He said he had some important business to think over, and we might leave him where he was. "Old Perry can't put away the liquor he used to," said Lord Charles, as we went out of the room. "He's had too much of it. He wants a little nap now. He's a nice old fellow, and you'll have a good time at Magnolia Hall as long as you stay there." CHAPTER XII The card-room was well occupied. We cut into a table with two other men, one of whom was the stockbroker who had made the lucky _coup_ that afternoon, and the other was a disagreeable sort of fellow who, I learnt afterwards, had inherited a great deal of money and had done little all his life to diminish it. His name was Brummer; he had the manners of a costermonger, and not of one in the higher walks of that calling, if there are such. Lord Charles treated both of them with a careless good-nature which seemed to subdue somewhat the exuberance of their vulgarity; but I thought that before we made up our table they looked about as if they would rather have joined another one. And it was evident that they suspected me of being what Brummer called contemptuously "a ---- philanthropist," when the stockbroker told him I had come into the club with Mr. Perry. Lord Charles was my partner, and I took the precaution of asking him what the points were to be, before we began. "Oh, club points--a sovereign," he said, in an off-hand manner, and I could only hope that my luck would stand good, for they were much higher than I was accustomed to. However, I had over ten pounds in my pocket and did not suppose that there would be much difficulty in getting more in Upsidonia if I wanted it. So I sat down with no particular uneasiness. It was a long rubber, but it ended in Lord Charles leaving the declaration to me, and my declaring "no trumps," with four aces and a long suit of diamonds. When he had expressed his satisfaction, and Brummer had sworn heavily at our luck, I leant back in my chair to watch him play the hand. He was just about to begin, when there was some commotion in the room, and I looked up to see two men in blue uniforms coming towards us with notebooks in their hands. Brummer let out a violent oath, and muttered something about the ---- inspectors. Lord Charles looked up at them and said: "Hullo! Come for a drink?" They ignored this pleasantry, and the superior of them asked what stakes we were playing for. "Club stakes, of course," said Brummer. "Pound points, and a hundred on the rubber."