The Argosy — page 222: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 205 Our windows face the East and are immediately opposite the Palma Club, where the jeunesse dorée, alike with those whose sun is declining, most do congregate for billiards, smoking, lounging and gossip. Whether the latter ever degenerates to scandal, is more than, I can at present tell you. It is said that human nature in its broad outlines is the same all the world over. If this be true—and If have no reason to doubt it, and have no arguments at hand to dis- prove it—then scandal cannot be unknown to Palma. But for the large upper windows the building might be taken for a convent ; from the outside, of course; for within it does not in the least resemble a community of nuns. AE oe a ee is —— - =e ~—1= . \ x \ WN Ss SNYSS = ae een a TL ~ Oe — ail = ) Nal sneer i law —— = te Is SS ~ = ~ — \ ~~ \ « SR yA = 4 \ * WN YX \ a \\ — 5 = ; | \ f HE = 5 > - thi = U = = 4 ly = SS EN ——- i Fok Coby See =\ TT we ————— SsS=— Yi i ‘ —— hf i'r y —— eee sata - i ———— ——s —= 2 aA? Ut ee = Aire ay ~ WY nea S 5 i ; 2 ‘ r | A Het ih eal has Whe! ih z ce In rem ~ Cee Fy - Sp AV er hae ft ) * “ } > Hltit 2 % i “e Ps \ <3! b \ “1h a | : A PALMA COURT. I will not enter into a description of the games at billiards, small tables, absence of pockets, mode of playing, &c. &c. This would be so much Greek to you, who have the good taste not to join other ladies when visiting their brothers’ billiard-rooms. To us to watch the players sometimes affords half an hour’s idle amusement, as we also lounge and smoke from our windows, whence we overlook this little world. H.C. is strong in the matter of billiards, and tries to raise in me an enthusiasm I pretend to feel— and do not. He gives me fifty, and I allow him to win. This keeps him in excellent temper, which is everything, whilst to lose a game at billiards is to me a mere bagatelle. I would not say as much of chess. ‘There I have the advantage. I give him a queen and a rook, and beat easily. (SO) COnnicooolks