"I fancy you play casino better than I," Deacon acknowledged. "I can name only three of yours, a knave, an ace, and big casino."
"Wrong. There aren't five aces in the deck. You've taken in three and you hold the fourth in your hand now."
"By Jove, you're right," Deacon admitted. "I did scoop in three. Anyway, I'll make 'cards' on you. That's all I need."
"I'll let you save little casino--" Grief paused to calculate. "Yes, and the ace as well, and still I'll make 'cards' and go out with big casino. Play."
"No 'cards,' and I win!" Deacon exulted as the last of the hand was played. "I go out on little casino and the four aces. 'Big casino' and 'spades' only bring you to twenty."
Grief shook his head. "Some mistake, I'm afraid."
"No," Deacon declared positively. "I counted every card I took in. That's the one thing I was correct on. I've twenty-six, and you've twenty-six."
Carefully and slowly, with trembling fingers, Deacon counted the cards he had taken. There were twenty-five. He reached over to the corner of the table, took up the rules Grief had written, folded them, and put them in his pocket. Then he emptied his glass, and stood up. Captain Donovan looked at his watch, yawned, and also arose.
"Yes," was the answer. "What time shall I send the whaleboat for you?"
"I'll go with you now. We'll pick up my luggage from the _Billy_ as we go by. I was sailing on her for Babo in the morning."
Deacon shook hands all around, after receiving a final pledge of good luck on Karo-Karo.
"Does Tom Butler play cards?" he asked Grief.
"Then I'll teach him double solitaire." Deacon turned toward the door, where Captain Donovan waited, and added with a sigh, "And I fancy he'll skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you island men."
It was in the autumn of 1904 that the Colonel told the story; Colonel M----, who, with his seventy years, his snowy hair and imperial, was yet as ruddy of cheek and as gallant of bearing as when in the old days he led the --th Cavalry through the deserts of the West. Since his retirement his home was at the Army and Navy Club, where his charming little dinners and his unfailing wit and eloquence as an after-dinner speaker made this courtly old warrior the most sought for man about the capital.