CHATBOT: Chapter 1: The Parlour Game The green baize table was illuminated by a single shaded light suspended above it. Eight men ranged around it, each with his pile of chips, and each with his varied expression of anticipation, reflection, excitement, or greed. Before each one lay a small card representing the amount of his losses or gains. They were playing poker, that is to say, poker according to the singular interpretation of the game adopted by Sir William Faulkner, their host at Greenway House. Several minor MPs and country gentlemen were present, and indeed Sir William strongly advocated the cause of the Conservatives in the locality. His views, however, were by no means of a rigid nature; in fact it was generally said in the neighbourhood that if the tide of political feeling had set the other way, Sir William would have developed an equally strong enthusiasm for the Liberals. But apart from politics, Lady Faulkner was a distant relative of the wife of the great Richard Fairfax, the famous QC, who was Labour MP for an industrial town up in the North. "I don't believe you follow the cards at all, Major Foster," said Sir William, leaning back and lighting a gold-tipped cigarette as his wife entered the room. "You're too much wrapped up in these mysterious army manoeuvres." "You're wrong there," observed Major Foster, with a soldierly frankness. "It's the one thing I do take a vivid interest in. Of course, I don't regard it in the light of an exalted form of mental effort like you, Sir William, or our good friend, Eustace Merrowby, here. No offence meant, as you know." Sir William laughed genially, as everyone did at Major Foster's sallies, and there was something refreshing in his outbursts in contrast to the heavy conversation of some of the others. "You mustn't take it personally if you should lose," said Sir William. "I must confess I'm a lucky player, invariably so." "I can't say I've observed it on this particular occasion," remarked Leslie Garth, Member for Awyth, in a dry tone. "I seem to be the one who's making the running at present." "Circumstances over which I have no control," said Sir William, stretching out his hand, and rubbing one finger significantly across his other hand. "I win," he added quietly as he turned up his cards. Eustace Merrowby leaned forward, his somewhat more intelligent face bent in the effort of concentration. He laid down his cards with a nonchalant gesture that suggested something of uncertainty. But even as he did so, a...