"I heard him sigh and then clear his throat, the way they do, and then he said, ‘Look here, Herbert, I know your sympathies and I do somewhat share them, but you know and I know and so do their nibs know that no equipment is ever a hundred per cent. Make me an offer, why don't you?' ‘I suppose about forty per cent are more or less serviceable,' I said. ‘Come on, Herbert: fair do's. Fifty-fifty, what do you say?' ‘Done, sir.' ‘Good man. Top man.'"

"Let me buy you a drink, Herbert," I said.

I went to the bar and came back with another whisky sour. He was sitting with his face averted from me, apparently interested in a cartoon of Sir Compton Mackenzie. When he turned to take his drink, I saw that his cheeks were moist.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I apologise."

"For what?"

"Doing this." He wiped both cheeks simultaneously with his crooked index fingers. "But I can never forgive myself," he said, "never. How could I do what I did? I shall never understand it."

"In what department exactly?" I said.

"My mother and my sister." He drank some of his new whisky sour. "Never. A year later, two perhaps . . . they were both . . ."

"You couldn't know."

"But I did nothing to warn them; did nothing to have them taken to a safe place. So you know what kind of a man I am. If you didn't before, you do now. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed to be so . . . emotional. Forgive me."

As I stood up, I could feel tears fattening in my eyes. It was against the code of the club, but I held out my hand to Herbert Schosch. He had apologised to me on the only occasion on which it was entirely unnecessary. To tell the truth, I was tempted to put my arms around the little man and hug him. Of course I did no such thing. England is England. 

Some weeks later, I walked into the bridge room and found Herbert and Perry Frewin playing backgammon. Bernard Pinto was doing one of those mathematical problems to be found in the back pages of the quality press. Three bridge players are nearly always happy to see a fourth, but when I said, "Table up!", Bernard compressed his lips and continued his calculations. In his case, it had to be a favour when, at last, he consented to cut for partners, eyes still on his newspaper. I had a pessimistic conviction that I should cut Herbert Schosch as my partner, and I did.

When our opponents bid a small slam in spades, Herbert's failure to lead the suit which I had doubled, "on the way round" as bridge players say, allowed them to make their contract.  He then accused me of having confused him. I promised to try not to do it again. We had, I reminded myself, become friends, of a kind. To prove it, when he bid recklessly and incurred two fat penalties, I muttered "Bad luck, partner."

On the next hand, Perry opened with a strong bid and was raised to game by Bernard.  Perry then took time before passing. I was looking at a very bad hand and guessed that he had been considering going on to a slam. Herbert, however, read Perry's pause for weakness. "I double," he said.

"And I redouble," Bernard said.