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However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place. "Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, "tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!"
"Isabella burst out a laughing at the strange request, an excess which, I confess, I was unable myself to repress; upon which the old lady, putting on a frown of the most ominous blackness, said: "'You may laugh, Madam; but first before you ridicule the misfortunes of others, ask yourself are you, too, free from infirmity? When did you see the ace of spades, Madam? Answer me that.
"You knew what you were about. And I'm glad that you came out of the scrap safe and sound. But it certainly was some scrap while it lasted." "It sure was," replied Dick. "That fellow was as skilful and plucky as they make them. He kept my hands full, and there was one time when he came within an ace of raking me. But luck was with me. Poor fellow!
"Not quite like this. This is to be the last game I play, win or lose. I tell you that now, so that there won't be any talk of revenge if I win." "You don't mean it! I've heard talk like that before." "All right. I've warned you. Now I propose that this be a game of pure luck. We get a new pack of cards, shuffle them, cut, then you pull one card and I another. Ace high. The highest takes the pot.
'You have it, Barenleib! cried the others, and then to Margarita: 'Look, young mistress! we are poor fellows, and ask a trifle of ransom, and then part friends. 'Not an ace! the Goshawk pronounced from his post. 'Two to one, remember. 'The odds are ours, replied the Goshawk confidently. They ranged themselves in front of the hall-door.
Hugh compared him to what he had once read about the eminent conductor of orchestra and musical festivals, Theodore Thomas, who when more than a hundred musicians were practicing under his direction, with a fearful outburst of sound and melody, would suddenly stop the proceedings, and scold a certain player whose instrument had "flatted," or come in just an ace behind the regular time.
"Three, seven, ace," soon drove out of Hermann's mind the thought of the dead Countess. "Three, seven, ace," were perpetually running through his head and continually being repeated by his lips. If he saw a young girl, he would say: "How slender she is! quite like the three of hearts." If anybody asked: "What is the time?" he would reply: "Five minutes to seven."
Oh, by heaven, I'd give anything everything, to take your place for the next hour!" "But then, Anthony, it would probably be I who could not eat!" "Tush, man, I'll hit you the ace of spades six times out of seven at twelve paces! Four o'clock, by heaven! I wonder if that confounded chaise will be ready yet!"
"Gambled it away, I guess; staked the whole property on the turn-up of a miserable queen of spades, and lost the lot." "As a matter of fact," Nick smiled grimly, "it were th' ace of hearts as done me in. An' the skunk as won it offen me wasn't a white man, neither, but a greasy Injun. So now you know."
"It's going to kill us this time," declared little Robey, the youngest subaltern, to whom the nights were a torment unspeakable. He had been within an ace of heat apoplexy more than once, and his nerves were stretched almost to breaking-point. But Merryon went doggedly on, hewing his unswerving way through all.
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