The
table was littered with playing cards.
"Damn 'em--they beat me this time in ten plays!" he yelled. "They've got
the devil in 'em! If they was alive I'd jump on 'em! I've played this
game of solitaire for nineteen years--I've played a million games--an'
damned if I ever got beat in my life as it's beat me since we left
Halifax!"
"Dear Heaven!" gasped Father Roland. "Have you been playing all the way
from Halifax?"
The solitaire fiend seemed not to hear, and resuming his seat with a low
and ominous muttering, he dealt himself another hand. In less than a
minute he was on his feet again, shaking the cards angrily under the
Little Missioner's nose as though that individual were entirely
accountable for his bad luck.
"Look at that accursed trey of hearts!" he demanded. "First card, ain't
it? First card!--an' if it had been the third, 'r the sixth, 'r the
ninth, 'r anything except that confounded Number One, I'd have slipped
the game up my sleeve. Ain't it enough to wreck any honest man's soul? I
ask you--ain't it?"
"Why don't you change the trey of hearts to the place that suits you?"
asked David, innocently. "It seems to me it would be very easy to move
it to third place in the deck if you want it there.
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