He had timed this to a nicety, hoping to arrive just after the greetings were over and before the game had begun, and he accomplished that purpose; for, with the well-thumbed cards lying between them and three half-emptied steins of beer on the table, Ersten was opposite a pink-faced man with curly gray hair, whose clothes sat upon his slightly portly person with fashion-plate precision.

It was this very same suit about which Ersten was talking when Johnny entered.
"Na, Kurzerhosen," he said with a trace of pathos in his guttural voice, "when you die we have no more suits of clothes like that." "I thank you," returned the flexible soft voice of Kurzerhosen.

"It is like the work you make in your ladies' garments, Ersten.

When you die we shall have no more good walking clothes for our womenfolks." "And when Schoppenvoll dies we have no more good wine," declared Ersten with conviction and a wave of his hand as Schoppenvoll approached them with an inordinately long-necked bottle, balancing it carefully on its side.
Johnny had drawn near the table now, but no one saw him, for this moment was one of deep gravity.

Schoppenvoll, a tall, straight-backed man with the dignity of a major, a waving gray pompadour, and a clean-cut face that might have belonged to a Beethoven, set down the tray at the very edge of the table and slid it gently into place.