Most of the men in town belonged, but many, Captain Berry among them, visited the room but seldom.
"Checkers," said the depot master, referring to the "club's" favorite game, "is too deliberately excitin' for me.

To watch Beriah Higgins and Ezra Weeks fightin' out a game of checkers is like gettin' your feet froze in January and waitin' for spring to come and thaw 'em out.

It's a numbin' kind of dissipation." But Obed Gott was a regular attendant at the "club," and to-night he had a particular reason for wishing to be there.

His cousin noticed his hesitation and made haste to relieve his mind.
"That's all right, Obed," he said, "go to the club, by all means.

I ain't such a stranger at your house that I can't find my way to bed without help.