of me. A dozen of this is as
bad as a Mortgage upon my Titmouse Farm. What'll my mamma say? I shall
die in the poor-house." But all this time he kept on drinking; and it
was not glass and glass about with him, I promise you, for he took at
least three bumpers full to his Chaplain's one, and eyed that reverend
personage grudgingly as he seized his opportunity, and brimmed up the
generous Red Liquor in his tall-stemmed glass. Yet the Chaplain seemed
in no way discountenanced by his scanty allowance, and I thought that,
perchance, his Reverence liked not wine of Burgundy.

They were playing a hand of piquet when I was introduced; and they being
Gentlefolks, and I a poor humble Serving Man that was to be, I was
bidden to wait, which I did very patiently in the embrasure of a window,
admiring the great dark tapestried curtains as they loomed in indistinct
gorgeousness among the shadows. The hand of piquet was over at last,
and Mr. Pinchin found that he had lost three shillings and sixpence.

"I can't pay it, I can't pay it," he said, making a most rueful
countenance. "I'm eaten out of house and home, and sharped at cards
besides. It's a shame for a Parson to play foul,--I say foul, Mr. Hodge.
It's a disgrace to the cloth to bring your wicked card-cheating
practices to devalise an English gentleman who is travelling for his
diversion."

"We'll play the game over again, if you choose, Worthy Sir," the
Chaplain answers quite quietly.

"Yes, and then you'll win seven shillings of me. You've sworn to bring
me to beggary and ruin. I know you swore it when my mamma sent you
abroad with me. Oh, why did I come to foreign parts with a wicked,
guzzling, gambling, chambering Chaplain, that's in league with the very
host and the drawers of this thieving inn against me--that burns me a
guinea a night in wax candles, and has had a freehold farm out of me in
Burgundy wine."

"I've have had but two glasses the entire evening," the Chaplain
pleaded, in a voice truly that was meek; but I thought that, even at the
distance I stood from him, I could see the colour rising in his cheek.

"Oh, you have, you have," went on Squire Bartholomew, who, if not half
Mad, was certainly more than three parts Muzzy; "you've ruined me, Mr.
Hodge, with your cards and your candles and your Burgundy, and Goodness
only knows what else besides."

The Chaplain could stand it no longer; and rose in a Rage.

"I wish all the candles and the cards were down yo