That's the essential rabbit. To-night he said 'I
guess I've got you beaten to a pulp,' when I fancy he wasn't guessing
at all. I mean to say, I swear he knew it perfectly."
"You lost the game of drawing poker?" I asked coldly, though I knew he
had carried little to lose.
"I lost----" he began. I observed he was strangely embarrassed. He
strangled over his pipe and began anew: "I said that to play the game
soundly you've only to know when to bluff. Studied it out myself, and
jolly well right I was, too, as far as I went. But there's further to
go in the silly game. I hadn't observed that to play it greatly one
must also know when one's opponent is bluffing."
"Really, sir?"
"Oh, really; quite important, I assure you. More important than one
would have believed, watching their silly ways. You fancy a chap's
bluffing when he's doing nothing of the sort. I'd enormously have
liked to know it before we played. Things would have been so awfully
different for us"--he broke off curiously, paused, then added--"for
you."
"Different for me, sir?" His words seemed gruesome. They seemed open
to some vaguely sinister interpretation. But I kept myself steady.
"We live and learn, sir," I said, lightly enough.
"Some of us learn too late," he replied, increasingly ominous.
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