“Eight,” said Vidler. “How ill Miss Renée looks!”
“Fourteen,” said Salome, playing a six. “Yes, poor girl! she’s brought her pigs to a bad market.”
“Got you this time,” said Vidler, smiling, as he played an ace—“fifteen”—and scored his two.
“Twenty,” said Salome; and so the game went on, the little woman playing with all the serious precision of an old stager, calling thirty-one “eleven,” informing Vidler when she was well ahead that it was “all Leadenhall Street to a China orange,” and proving herself such an adept that the little man was thoroughly beaten.
“Better luck next time,” said Vidler, giving the Cards a good shuffle; and then the pair stopped to listen, for faint and low, like a melody from another land, came the sad sweet voice of Renée, singing that wonderful old Irish air, “Grammachree,” putting an end to the play, for the couple sat and listened, Vidler nodding his head gently, and waving a card to the melancholy cadence till it ended, when the game once more began.
Pop!
“Bless us and save us?” cried Salome, dropping her Cribbage-peg as she was in the act of scoring three for a run; “is it a purse or a coffin?”
Vidler rose, and, taking the tongs, carefully picked up the cinder which had flown from the fire, and was now making an unpleasant savour of burning woollen fabric to arise from the hearthrug. He laid it solemnly upon the table to cool, and then it was shaken by Salome, but gave forth no answering tinkle.
“It isn’t a purse,” she said, holding it to the light. “It’s a coffin!”
She handed the little hollow bubble of cindery coal-tar to her husband, and he laid it down, took off and wiped his perfectly clean spectacles, and replaced them before carefully examining the portent by the light.