"Is he to have it, Squire, or is he not?" would be Tub Ryll's serious inquiry, just as it was the parson's turn to play on him, or, "Who backs the vicar elect?"--observations which seldom failed to cost that expectant divine a sovereign, for the play at the Hall table, although not so high as was going on in the Library with those who patronized cards, was for considerable stakes. Carew, who enjoyed, above all things, this embarrassing pleasantry, would return an ambiguous reply, so that the problem remained without a solution. But when the disgusted chaplain at last threw up his cue, in a most unusual fit of dudgeon, the Squire put the question to the company, as a case of church preferment of which he was unwilling to take the sole responsibility. "The sum," he said, "which had been offered to him for the next presentation would exactly defray the cost of his second pack of hounds, which his chaplain himself had advised him to put down; so the point to be considered--" "The hounds, the hounds!" broke in this impatient audience, amidst roars of laughter. And nobody knew better than poor Parson Whymper that this verdict would be more final than that of most other ecclesiastical synods, and that he had lost his preferment. It was Carew's humor to take jest for earnest (as it was to turn into ridicule what was serious), and to pretend that his word was pledged to decisions to which nobody else would have attached the slightest weight; it pleased him to feel that his lightest word was law, or perhaps it was a part of the savage adoration which he professed to pay to truth. Byam Ryll felt a genuine regret that he had pushed matters so far, though Whymper himself was to blame for having shown temper, and thereby precipitated the catastrophe. But he did not play the less skillfully on that account; and, moreover, had no rival to divide the pool with him. "I would give five pounds if somebody would beat him," muttered the discontented parson within Yorke's hearing, who was standing aloof with his cigar watching the game. "I think I _could_," said the young man, quietly, "if I _had_ five pounds." As the pool was two pounds, and the lives were one, this was exactly the amount of pecuniary risk to be run, and which want of the necessary funds had alone prevented the young man from incurring. "Here is a fiver," replied the parson, softly. "But I really have no money," remonstrated Yorke, though his fine face lit up for a moment with delight (for he was a gambler to the core), "nor any expectation of--" "Yes, yes; you have expectations enough," answered the other, hurriedly. "You may give me that living yet yourself--who knows? Take a ball, man--take a ball."