While he was being introduced to Deacon, McMurtrey dispatched a house-boy with the pants, and when Captain Donovan came in it was as a white man should—at least in Goboto.
Deacon lost the second game, and an outburst heralded the fact. Peter Gee devoted himself to lighting a cigarette and keeping quiet.
"What?—are you quitting because you're ahead?" Deacon demanded.
Grief raised his eyebrows questioningly to McMurtrey, who frowned back his own disgust.
"It's the rubber," Peter Gee answered.
"It takes three games to make a rubber. It's my deal. Come on!"
Peter Gee acquiesced, and the third game was on.
"Young whelp—he needs a lacing," McMurtrey muttered to Grief. "Come on, let us quit, you chaps. I want to keep an eye on him. If he goes too far I'll throw him out on the beach, company instructions or no."
"Who is he?" Grief queried.
"A left-over from last steamer. Company's orders to treat him nice. He's looking to invest in a plantation. Has a ten-thousand-pound letter of credit with the company. He's got 'all-white Australia' on the brain. Thinks because his skin is white and because his father was once Attorney-General of the Commonwealth that he can be a cur. That's why he's picking on Peter, and you know Peter's the last man in the world to make trouble or incur trouble. Damn the company. I didn't engage to wet-nurse its infants with bank accounts. Come on, fill your glass, Grief. The man's a blighter, a blithering blighter."
"Maybe he's only young," Grief suggested.
"He can't contain his drink—that's clear." The manager glared his disgust and wrath. "If he raises a hand to Peter, so help me, I'll give him a licking myself, the little overgrown cad!"
The pearl-buyer pulled the pegs out of the cribbage board on which he was scoring and sat back. He had won the third game. He glanced across to Eddy Little, saying:
"I'm ready for the bridge, now."
"I wouldn't be a quitter," Deacon snarled.
"Oh, really, I'm tired of the game," Peter Gee assured him with his habitual quietness.
"Come on and be game," Deacon bullied. "One more. You can't take my money that way. I'm out fifteen pounds. Double or quits."
McMurtrey was about to interpose, but Grief restrained him with his eyes.
"If it positively is the last, all right," said Peter Gee, gathering up the cards. "It's my deal, I believe. As I understand it, this final is for fifteen pounds. Either you owe me thirty or we quit even?"
"That's it, chappie. Either we break even or I pay you thirty."
"Getting blooded, eh?" Grief remarked, drawing up a chair.
The other men stood or sat around the table, and Deacon played again in bad luck. That he was a good player was clear. The cards were merely running against him. That he could not take his ill luck with equanimity was equally clear. He was guilty of sharp, ugly curses, and he snapped and growled at the imperturbable half-caste. In the end Peter Gee counted out, while Deacon had not even made his fifty points. He glowered speechlessly at his opponent.
"Looks like a lurch," said Grief.
"Which is double," said Peter Gee.
"There's no need your telling me," Deacon snarled. "I've studied arithmetic. I owe you forty-five pounds. There, take it!"
The way in which he flung the nine five-pound notes on the table was an insult in itself. Peter Gee was even quieter, and flew no signals of resentment.
"You've got fool's luck, but you can't play cards, I can tell you that much," Deacon went on. "I could teach you cards."
The half-caste smiled and nodded acquiescence as he folded up the money.
"There's a little game called casino—I wonder if you ever heard of it?—a child's game."
"I've seen it played," the half-caste murmured gently.
"What's that?" snapped Deacon. "Maybe you think you can play it?"
"Oh, no, not for a moment. I'm afraid I haven't head enough for it."
"It's a bully game, casino," Grief broke in pleasantly. "I like it very much."
Deacon ignored him.
"I'll play you ten quid a game—thirty-one points out," was the challenge to Peter Gee. "And I'll show you how little you know about cards. Come on! Where's a full deck?"
"No, thanks," the half-caste answered. "They are waiting for me in order to make up a bridge set."
"Yes, come on," Eddy Little begged eagerly. "Come on, Peter, let's get started."
"Afraid of a little game like casino," Deacon girded. "Maybe the stakes are too high. I'll play you for pennies—or farthings, if you say so."
The man's conduct was a hurt and an affront to all of them. McMurtrey could stand it no longer.
"Now hold on, Deacon. He says he doesn't want to play. Let him alone."
Deacon turned raging upon his host; but before he could blurt out his abuse, Grief had stepped into the breach.
"I'd like to play casino with you," he said.
"What do you know about it?"
"Not much, but I'm willing to learn."
"Well, I'm not teaching for pennies to-night."
"Oh, that's all right," Grief answered. "I'll play for almost any sum—within reason, of course."
Deacon proceeded to dispose of this intruder with one stroke.
"I'll play you a hundred pounds a game, if that will do you any good."
Grief beamed his delight. "That will be all right, very right. Let us begin. Do you count sweeps?"
Deacon was taken aback. He had not expected a Goboton trader to be anything but crushed by such a proposition.
"Do you count sweeps?" Grief repeated.
Andrews had brought him a new deck, and he was throwing out the joker.
"Certainly not," Deacon answered. "That's a sissy game."
"I'm glad," Grief coincided. "I don't like sissy games either."
"You don't, eh? Well, then, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll play for five hundred pounds a game."
Again Deacon was taken aback.
"I'm agreeable," Grief said, beginning to shuffle. "Cards and spades go out first, of course, and then big and little casino, and the aces in the bridge order of value. Is that right?"
"You're a lot of jokers down here," Deacon laughed, but his laughter was strained. "How do I know you've got the money?"
"By the same token I know you've got it. Mac, how's my credit with the company?"
"For all you want," the manager answered.
"You personally guarantee that?" Deacon demanded.
"I certainly do," McMurtrey said. "Depend upon it, the company will honour his paper up and past your letter of credit."
"Low deals," Grief said, placing the deck before Deacon on the table.
The latter hesitated in the midst of the cut and looked around with querulous misgiving at the faces of the others. The clerks and captains nodded.
"You're all strangers to me," Deacon complained. "How am I to know? Money on paper isn't always the real thing."
Then it was that Peter Gee, drawing a wallet from his pocket and borrowing a fountain pen from McMurtrey, went into action.
"I haven't gone to buying yet," the half-caste explained, "so the account is intact. I'll just indorse it over to you, Grief. It's for fifteen thousand. There, look at it."
Deacon intercepted the letter of credit as it was being passed across the table. He read it slowly, then glanced up at McMurtrey.
"Is that right?"
"Yes. It's just the same as your own, and just as good. The company's paper is always good."
Deacon cut the cards, won the deal, and gave them a thorough shuffle. But his luck was still against him, and he lost the game.
"Another game," he said. "We didn't say how many, and you can't quit with me a loser. I want action."
Grief shuffled and passed the cards for the cut.
"Let's play for a thousand," Deacon said, when he had lost the second game. And when the thousand had gone the way of the two five hundred bets he proposed to play for two thousand.