We played progressive uchre for a silly
prize, and we all got shuffled up wrong and had to stay so. Then the
major did amateur conjuring till we nearly died. I was thankful to sneak
out-of-doors and smoke a cigar under the starlight. I walked up and
down, consigning Jones to--well, where I thought he belonged. I thought
of the time I had wasted over the fellow--the good money--the hopes--I
was savage with disappointment, and when I heard Freddy softly calling
me from the veranda I zigzagged away through the trees toward the lodge
gate. There are moments when a man is better left alone. Besides, I was
in one of those self-tormenting humors when it is a positive pleasure to
pile on the agony. When you're eighty-eight per cent. miserable it's
hell not to reach par. I was sore all over, and I wanted the balm--the
consolation--to be found in the company of those cold old stars, who had
looked down in their time on such countless generations of human asses.
It gave me a wonderful sense of fellowship with the past and future.
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