That is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got.
Then the boys who are bending and watching on the outside, mark them: they are most useful players, the dodgers, who seize on the ball the moment it rolls out from amongst the chargers, and away with it across to the opposite goal.
Once started, it was a quiet game, with little or no conversation, though all about the
players the place was a-roar.
Instantly the count and the two other
players were upon their feet.
True, chairs were provided around the tables, but few
players made use of them--more especially if there was a large attendance of the general public; since to stand allowed of a closer approach; and, therefore, of greater facilities for calculation and staking.
But it was Lady Lundie's turn to choose a second
player on her side.
The men are placed upon the board as in chess upon the first two rows next the
players. In order from left to right on the line of squares nearest the
players, the jetan pieces are Warrior, Padwar, Dwar, Flier, Chief, Princess, Flier, Dwar, Padwar, Warrior.
At other times the
players overflowed, as it were, into the audience.
The mingling of the public with the
players was a practice which so annoyed the haughty French actor, Baron, that to suggest to the audience the absurdity of it, he would turn his back on them for a whole act, and play to the audience on the stage.
Nicholas submitted to him, and at one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other
players, or peered at the now cold face of Dolokhov and tried to read what was passing in his mind.
He accepted poor
players and knew how to make the best of them.
The
players, divided into two parties, stood on opposite sides of a tightly drawn net with gilt poles on the carefully leveled and rolled croquet-ground.