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Hi, help me please to understand the character. It’s in the beginning of the short story by Somerset Maugham ‘The facts of Life”
It was Henry Garnet’s habit on leaving the city of an afternoon to drop ih at his club and play bridge before going home to dinner. He was a pleasant man to play with. He knew the game well and you could be sure that he would make the best of his cards. He was a good loser; and when he won was more inclined to ascribe his success to his luck than to his skill. He was indulgent, and if his partner made a mistake could be trusted to find an excuse for him. It was surprising then on this occasion to hear him telling his partner with unnecessary sharpness that he had never seen a hand worse played; and it was more surprising still to see him not only make a grave error himself, an error of which you would never have thought him capable, but when his partner, not unwilling to get a little of his own back, pointed it out, insist against all reason and with considerable heat that he was perfectly right. But they were all old friends,, the men he was playing with, and none of them took his ill-humour very seriously. Henry Garnet was a broker, a partner in a firm of repute, and it occurred to one of them that something had gone wrong with some stock he was interested in.
I don’t understand- first Henry Garnet is a good indulgent, modest guy and then he’s unlikely to do what is in bold text to his partner, (right? particular that part puzzled me that tells what he is or what he is not?) but! still his ill humor wasn’t taken seriously. What is his ill humor? Thank you.
P.S. I haven’t written the whole story yet, mayby his mysterious personality is explained better further in the text.
Thank you very much. I googled and haven’t even found the Russian translation of the text. No wonder why!
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