"Fetch a pack of cards," continued my lord, "and I will teach you."
The landlord excused himself in considerable alarm. "It was too much honour," he said; "he doubted he was too old to learn. Would his lordship like a toast of bread and an olive with his wine?"
"I had rather deal than drink," answered Lord Bellinger, "though I'm in the humour for both. If there's nobody in the house to play a game at whist or ombre, send round to the stable, and tell the ostler I will try my luck with him at all-fours."
The landlord stared; but a bright thought struck him, and he observed: "There's a gentleman in the Sunflower who arrived this afternoon. He looks like a gentleman who wouldn't object to a game of cards, or anything in that way."
"Bravo, Boniface," was the answer. "Carry him my respects—Lord Bellinger's respects—with a bottle of your best, and say, if he is at leisure I shall be happy to wait on him at once."
The landlord delivered his message with alacrity, and in less than five minutes John Garnet answered it in person at his lordship's door. He had come to this hostelry for the very purpose of obtaining the introduction he now found so easy; and rather regretted the amount of thought he had wasted after supper in considering how he should make Lord Bellinger's acquaintance, and gain his confidence sufficiently to betray it. With his best bow and pleasantest smile, "plain John Garnet" stood on the threshold, and assured the other that no consideration would have induced him to permit his lordship to ascend to the Sunflower till he had himself come down to conduct him upstairs, if he would so far honour his humble apartment, where he would at once direct preparations to be made for the reception of his noble visitor.
"Zounds, man!" answered the other, who at this period of the evening was seldom disposed to stand on ceremony, "we want nothing but a bottle of Burgundy and a pack of cards. They are both on that table. Let us sit down at once and make the most of our time."
"Agreed," replied his guest; "and your lordship shall choose the game and the stakes."
"What say you to picquet?" asked the nobleman, opening the Burgundy, "Ten guineas a game. Twenty—fifty, if you like?"
John Garnet, reflecting that he knew nothing of his adversary's force, and was himself no great performer, modestly chose the lowest stake, and proceeded to play his hand with as much care as his own preoccupation and the strange position in which he found himself permitted. Picquet is a game requiring, no less than skill and practice, undivided attention. John Garnet could not forbear glancing about the room for some symptoms of the documents he desired to make his own; wondering if they were kept in his lordship's pockets, in her ladyship's baggage, under charge of the servants. It is not surprising that at the end of the first game he found himself the better by two glasses of moderate Burgundy, and the worse by ten golden pieces stamped with the image of King George. He ventured a second game, and with the same result.