Suppose we could have some crackers and cheese and
beer?"
She nodded.
"He might have mentioned it before. Oh well, it's his house."
The poker-party straggled in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, Jim
Howland. To her they mechanically said, "'Devenin'," but to Kennicott,
in a heroic male manner, "Well, well, shall we start playing? Got a
hunch I'm going to lick somebody real bad." No one suggested that she
join them. She told herself that it was her own fault, because she was
not more friendly; but she remembered that they never asked Mrs. Sam
Clark to play.
Bresnahan would have asked her.
She sat in the living-room, glancing across the hall at the men as they
humped over the dining table.
They were in shirt sleeves; smoking, chewing, spitting incessantly;
lowering their voices for a moment so that she did not hear what they
said and afterward giggling hoarsely; using over and over the canonical
phrases: "Three to dole," "I raise you a finif," "Come on now, ante up;
what do you think this is, a pink tea?" The cigar-smoke was acrid and
pervasive.
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