And the curious thing was that Alderman Keats never again
mentioned his gout.
AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
I
James Peake and his wife, and Enoch Lovatt, his wife's half-sister's
husband, and Randolph Sneyd, the architect, were just finishing the
usual Saturday night game of solo whist in the drawing-room of Peake's
large new residence at Hillport, that unique suburb of Bursley. Ella
Peake, twenty-year-old daughter of the house, sat reading in an
arm-chair by the fire which blazed in the patent radiating grate. Peake
himself was banker, and he paid out silver and coppers at the rate of
sixpence a dozen for the brass counters handed to him by his wife and
Randolph Sneyd.
"I've made summat on you to-night, Lovatt," said Peake, with his broad
easy laugh, as he reckoned up Lovatt's counters. Enoch Lovatt's
principles and the prominence of his position at the Bursley Wesleyan
Chapel, though they did not prevent him from playing cards at his
sister-in-law's house, absolutely forbade that he should play for money,
and so it was always understood that the banker of the party should be
his financier, supplying him with counters and taking the chances of
gain or loss.
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