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. To do Lord Bellinger justice, he was not a rapacious gambler. He loved winning well enough, but would rather lose heavily than not play at all. "I am too strong for you," said he; "I ought to have told you picquet is my especial game." But when did a loser ever admit the superiority of an adversary's skill? "Your lordship held good cards," answered John Garnet; "my luck is the likelier to turn. I call for a fresh pack." So the waiter was summoned, and more cards, with another bottle of wine, were brought in. Lord Bellinger began to feel the old wild impulses rising in his heart; and John Garnet, a desperate man, bound on a desperate errand, had no disinclination to venture Katerfelto's money in an undertaking that compromised his own head. After two more games, Lord Bellinger had won a hundred guineas; and John Garnet was at the end of his resources.