This was said with tipsy solemnity; and then Mr. Brook made another effort to shuffle the cards, and stooped a great many times to pick up some of those he had dropped, but seemed never to succeed in picking up all of them.
"I'll tell you what it is, Maunders," he said, at last; "I'm getting an old man; my sight isn't what it used to be. I'm bless' if—can tell a king from—queen."
Before he could complete the shuffling of the cards to his own satisfaction, Mr. Brook's eyelids began to droop over his watery eyes, and all at once his head fell forward on the table, amongst the scattered cards, his hair flopping against a fallen candlestick and smoking tallow candle.
Mr. Milsom's air of jolly good-fellowship disappeared: he sprang up suddenly, went to his friend, and shook him, rather roughly for such friendship.
Matthew snored a little louder, but slept on.
"He's fast as a rock," muttered Black Milsom; "but I must wait till it's likely Stephen Plumpton will be as sound asleep as this one."
Mr. Milsom went to his kitchen and ordered his only servant—a sturdy young native of the village—to go off to bed at once.
"I've got a friend in the parlour: but I'll see him out myself when he goes," said Mr. Milsom. "You pack off to bed as soon as you've put out the lights in the bar, and shut the back-door."
Mr. Milsom then returned to the apartment where his sleeping guest reposed.
The coachman's capacious overcoat hung on a chair near where its owner slept.