There was a little gasp of envy from the table and the players to the left of Bond exchanged rueful glances at their failure to accept the two million franc bet.
I listened, losing myself in a world far from my own, watching his hands draw animated circles in the air, his rueful smile when he felt he was taking himself too seriously.
Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.