Chenery, Dulcia's captain, asked, looking up from the desultory game of vingt-et-un that he and Little, Immortalis's captain, were playing.

Four ragged men greeted them, crouched over a desultory game of Travel-Up.

Aschenbach watches as Tadzio and his friends play a desultory game on the beach; they soon leave.

The couple enjoy playing desultory games of telephone tag on each other's answering machines.

Later that evening, when he was playing a desultory game of Scrabble with Broughton and Hoddnett, two of the older boys, he casually brought the subject up.

He is discovered in a bar, playing a desultory game of pinball beside half a dozen empty beer bottles.

Two others were involved in a desultory game of poker.

A couple of sad-looking customers sat huddled over thickly foamed beers at a back table while they played a desultory game of gin.

It is a late August night in 1912 and the two are drinking whiskey while playing a desultory game of cards.

Last Sunday, he threw for three touchdowns in the final period against the Giants in an otherwise desultory game.