As Tom Poppins finished these instructions, given in the card-player's rapid don't-ask-me-any-more-fool-questions manner, Mr. Wrenn felt that he was choking. He craned up his neck, trying to ease his stiff collar. So, then, he was a failure, a social outcast already.
So, then, he couldn't learn Five Hundred! And he had been very proud of knowing one card from another perfectly, having played a number of games of two-handed poker with Tim on the cattle-boat. But what the dickens did "left--cat--follow suit" mean?
And to fail with Nelly watching him! He pulled at his collar again.
Thus he reflected while Mrs. Arty and Tom were carrying on the following brilliant but cryptic society-dialogue: Mrs. Arty: Well, I don't know.
Tom: Not failure, but low bid is crime, little one.
Mrs. Arty: Mary, shall I make-Tom: Hey! No talking 'cross table!
Mrs. Arty: Um--let--me--see.
Tom: Bid up, bid up! Bid a little seven on hearts?
Mrs. Arty: Just for that I will bid seven on hearts, smarty!
Tom: Oh, how we will squat you!... What you bidding, Wrenn?
Behind Mr. Wrenn, Nelly Croubel whispered to him: "Bid seven on no suit. You've got the joker." Her delicate forefinger, its nail shining, was pointing at a curious card in his hand.
"Seven nosut," he mumbled.
"Eight hearts," snapped Miss Proudfoot.
Nelly drew up a chair behind Mr. Wrenn's. He listened to her soft explanations with the desperate respect and affection which a green subaltern would give to a general in battle.
Tom and he won the hand. He glanced back at Nelly with awe, then clutched his new hand, fearfully, dizzily, staring at it as though it might conceal one of those malevolent deceivers of which Nelly had just warned him--a left bower.
"Good! Spades--see," said Nelly.
Fifteen minutes later Mr. Wrenn felt that Tom was hoping he would lead a club. He played one, and the whole table said: "That's right. Fine!"
On his shoulder he felt a light tap, and he blushed like a sunset as he peeped back at Nelly.
Mr. Wrenn, the society light, was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir Company all this time. Indeed, at present he intended to keep on taking The Job seriously until that most mistily distant time, which we all await, "when something turns up." His fondling of the Southern merchants was showing such results that he had grown from an interest in whatever papers were on his desk to a belief in the divine necessity of The Job as a whole. Not now, as of old, did he keep the personal letters in his desk tied up, ready for a sudden departure for Vienna or Kamchatka. Also, he wished to earn much more money for his new career of luxury. Mr. Guilfogle had assured him that there might be chances ahead--business had been prospering, two new road salesmen and a city-trade man had been added to the staff, and whereas the firm had formerly been jobbers only, buying their novelties from manufacturers, now they were having printed for them their own Lotsa-Snap Cardboard Office Mottoes, which were making a big hit with the trade.