Ignacio Natera Revello was tall and thin, dressed in a white linen countryman’s shirt, white trousers, black silk socks, well-shined, old brown English brogues, and he had a red face, a yellow, toothbrushy moustache and nearsighted, bloodshot eyes that the green glasses protected. His hair was sandy and brushed stiffly down. Seeing his eagerness for the highball, you might think it was his first of the day. It was not.
“Your ambassador is making an ass of himself,” he said to Thomas Hudson.
“I’ll be a sad son of a bitch,” Thomas Hudson said.
“No. No. Be serious. Let me tell you. Now this is absolutely between you and me.”
“Drink up. I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Well, you should hear about it. And you should do something about it.”
“Aren’t you cold?” Thomas Hudson asked him. “In that shirt and the light trousers?”
“I’m never cold.”
You’re never sober either, Thomas Hudson thought. You start to drink in that little bar by the house and by the time you come here for the first one of the day you’re potted. You probably didn’t even notice the weather when you dressed. Yes, he thought. And what about yourself? What time of day did you take your first drink this morning and how many have you had before this first one? Don’t you cast the first stone at any rummies. It’s not rummies, he thought. I don’t mind him being a rummy. It is just that he is a damned bore. You don’t have to pity bores and you do not have to be kind to them. Come on, he said. You’re going to have fun today. Relax and enjoy it.
“I’ll roll you for this one,” he said.
“Very well,” said Ignacio. “You roll.”
He rolled three kings in one, stood on them, naturally, and won.
That was pleasant. It couldn’t make the drink taste any better. But it was a pleasant feeling to roll three kings in one and he enjoyed winning from Ignacio Natera Revello because he was a snob and a bore and winning from him gave him some useful significance.
“Now we’ll roll for this one,” Ignacio Natera Revello said. He’s the type of snob and bore, that you always think of by all his three names, Thomas Hudson thought, just as you think of him as a snob and a bore. It’s probably like people who put III after their names. Thomas Hudson the third. Thomas Hudson the turd.
“You’re not Ignacio Natera Revello the third are you by any chance?”
“Of course not. You know my father’s name very well.”
“That’s right. Of course I do.”
“You know both my brothers’ names. You know my grandfather’s name. Don’t be silly.”
“I’ll try not to be,” Thomas Hudson said. “I’ll try quite hard.”
“Do,” Ignacio Natera Revello said. “It will be good for you.”
Concentrating, working the leather cup in his best form, doing his hardest and best work of the morning, he rolled four jacks all day.
“My poor dear friend,” Thomas Hudson said. He shook the dice in the heavy leather cup and loved the sound of them. “Such kind good dice. Such rich-feeling and laudable dice,” he said.
“Go on and throw them and don’t be silly.”
Thomas Hudson rolled out three kings and a pair of tens on the slightly dampened bar.
“Want to bet?”
“We have a bet,” Ignacio Natera Revello said. “The second round of drinks.”
Thomas Hudson shook the dice lovingly again and rolled a queen and a jack.
“Want to bet now?”
“The odds are still greatly in your favor.”
“OK. I’ll just take the drinks then.”
He rolled a king and an ace, feeling them come out of the shaker solidly and proudly.
“You lucky sod.”
“Another double frozen daiquiri without sugar and whatever Ignacio wants,” Thomas Hudson said. He was beginning to feel fond of Ignacio.
“Look, Ignacio,” he said. “I never heard of anyone looking at the world through green-colored glasses. Rose colored, yes. Green colored, no. Doesn’t it give everything a sort of grassy look? Don’t you feel as though you were on the turf? Do you never feel as though you had been turned out to pasture?”