ordered up a dinner which they could not touch, but
sat over in silence for two weary hours, drinking very much more
burgundy than they were aware of. Captain Jemmy, taking up three
bottles one after another and finding them all empty, ordered up
three more, and drew his chair up to the hearth, where he sat kicking
the oaken logs viciously with his long legs. The little hunchback
stared out on the falling night, rang for candles, and began to pace
the room like a caged beast.

Before midnight Captain Runacles was drunk. Six fresh bottles stood
on the table. The man was a cask. Even in the warm firelight his
face was pale as a sheet, and his lips worked continually.

Captain Barker still walked up and down, but his thin legs would not
always move in a straight line. His eyes glared like two globes of
green fire, and he began to knock against the furniture. Few men can
wait helplessly and come out of it with credit. Every time Captain
John hit himself against the furniture Captain Jemmy cursed him.

Tie up in silk your careless hair;
Soft Peace is come again!

--Sang the little man, in a rasping voice. "Your careless hair," he
hiccoughed; "your careless hair, Meg!"

Then he sat down on the floor and laughed to himself softly, rocking
his distorted body to and fro.

"Bah!" said his friend, without looking round. "You're drunk."
And he poured out more burgundy. He was outrageously drunk himself,
but it only affected his temper, not his wits.

"Meg," he said, "will live. What's more, she'll live to marry me."

"She won't. She'll die. Hist! there's a star falling outside."

He picked himself up and crawled upon the window-seat, clutching at
the red curtains to keep his footing.

"Jemmy, she'll die! What was it that old fool said to-day?
The door's closing on us both. To think of our marching up, just
now, with those two letters; and the very sun in heaven cracking his
cheeks with laughter at us--us two poor scarecrows making love thirty
years after the time!"

His wry head dropped forward on his chest.

After this the two kept silence. The rest of the house had long
since gone to rest, and the sound of muffled snoring alone marked the
time as it passed, except when Captain Jemmy, catching up another oak
log, drove it into the fire with his heel; or out in the street the
watch went by, chanting the hour; or a tipsy shouting broke out in
some distant street, or the noise of dogs chal