The Game

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The three British Other Banks were eating quietly in a corner of the New China Hotel dining room when the little round chocolate man who called himself Jayasuria sat down in the vacant chair with his welcome bottle of surreptitious scotch. From then on the conversation became increasingly maudlin. Freed of the necessity of giving up the table due to the dwindling of late patrons, the corner grew noisier as the scotch, liberally splashed into coffee cups, began to make its effect.

Buck, the pimply private with the Africa ribbon, made little effort to conceal his distaste for their self-appointed host, but Lance Corporal Henry Marlow suspected that each jibe bit a little more deeply than the cheerful little man world have admitted. Peter, the other private, became increasingly oblivious of the little group as the liquor stimulated his mental and vocal research into the charms of the latest batch of British girls, members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, who had arrived in Ceylon to join their detachment. He provided a fairly constant muttering background to the conversation which was being carried on almost entirely by Buck and Jayasuria.

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