"Saunders, you don't want to go to bed, you old
cormorant. Come on with me, and we'll spend the night hours worthily."
"I'm game!" Saunders rejoined. "That is, if it's anything decent. I'm
not going to do any more tar-worshipping, that's certain."
"Don't want you to. I'm going to dress up and have a run around the
Bazaar, and if you want a little excitement, you had better do
likewise. You see things you don't see in the daytime, I can tell you,
and some of the women aren't bad. Come on! We can run round to my
diggings and change. Are you coming, Phipps and Geoffries?"
The weedy young man addressed as Phipps rose with alacrity.
"Anything for a change," he said. "Wake up, Innocence!" He brought his
hand down with a friendly thump on Geoffries' shoulder, but the boy
shook his head.
"No," he said, in the same rough, monotonous voice. "I'm done for
to-night. You fellows get on without me."
"As you like. Good night."
"Good night."
The three men went into the bungalow. Gradually their voices died away
in the distance, but the boy never moved, never shifted his blank
stare from the cards in front of him. It was a curious tableau. In the
midst of the darkness it was as though a lime-light had been thrown on
to a theatrical representation of despair, while beneath, hidden by
the shadow, a lonely spectator, to whom the scene was a horrible
revelation, fought out a hard battle between indignation and
disbelief.
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