acter is beginning to be--"

"Bother all this talking!" interrupted Mat, jumping up suddenly as he
spoke, and taking a greasy pack of cards from the chimney-piece. "I
don't ask no questions, and don't want no answers. Let's have a drop of
grog and a turn-to at Beggar-my-Neighbor. Sixpence a time. Come on!"

They sat down at once to their cards and their brandy-and-water; playing
uninterruptedly for an hour or more. Zack won; and--being additionally
enlivened by the inspiring influences of grog--rose to a higher and
higher pitch of exhilaration with every additional sixpence which his
good luck extracted from his adversary's pocket. His gaiety seemed at
last to communicate itself even to the imperturbable Mat, who in an
interval of shuffling the cards, was heard to deliver himself suddenly
of one of those gruff chuckles, which have been already described as the
nearest approach he was capable of making towards a civilized laugh.

He was so seldom in the habit of exhibiting any outward symptoms of
hilarity, that Zack, who was dealing for the new game, stopped in
astonishment, and inquired with great curiosity what it was his friend
was "grunting about." At first, Mat declined altogether to say;--then,
on being pressed, admitted that his mind was just then running on the
"old woman" Zack had spoken of; as having "suddenly fallen foul of
him in Mr. Blyth's house, because he wanted to give the young woman a
present:" which circumstance, Mat added, "so tickled his fancy, that he
would have paid a crown piece out of his pocket only to have seen and
heard the whole squabble all through from beginning to end."

Zack, whose fancy was now exactly in the right condition to be "tickled"
by anything that "tickled" his friend, seized in high glee the humorous
side of the topic suggested to him; and immediately began describing
poor Mrs. Peckover's personal peculiarities in a strain of the most
ridiculous exaggeration. Mat listened, as he went on, with such admiring
attention, and seemed to be so astonishingly amused by everything he
said, that, in the excitement of success, he ran into the next room,
snatched the two pillows off the bed, fastened one in front and
the other behind him, tied the patchwork counterpane over all for a
petticoat, and waddled back into his friend's presence, in the character
of fat Mrs. Peckover, as she appeared on the memorable evening when she
stopped him mysteriously in the passage of Mr. Blyth's house.