“With pleasure,” said Layton, setting the pieces at once. He won the first move, and just as he was about to begin he stopped, and said, “I wish I knew your strength.” “The players give me a knight, and generally beat me,” said Ogden. “Oh! I understand. Will you allow me to fetch a cheroot? I move king's knight's pawn one square.” He arose as he spoke, and walked into the adjoining room. Ogden moved his queen's pawn. Layton, from the adjoining room, asked the move, and then said, “King's bishop to knight's first square;” meanwhile continuing to search for a cigar to his liking. “Do you purpose to continue the game without seeing the board?” asked Ogden, as he bit his lip with impatience. “Not if you prefer otherwise,” said Layton, who now came back to his place, with his cigar fully lighted. “You see what an inexorable enemy I have, Millar,” said Ogden, with an affected laugh; “he will not be satisfied unless my defeat be ignominious.” “Is it so certain to be a defeat, George?” said the rector. “Chess was always your great game. I remember how the Windsor Club entertained you on the occasion of your victory over that Swiss player, Eshwald.” “And so you have beaten Eshwald,” broke in Layton, hastily. “We must give no quarter here.” And with this he threw away his cigar, and bent down over the board. “We shall only disturb them, Karstairs; come along into the drawing- room, and let us talk parish business,” said the rector. “Our little dinner has scarcely gone off so well as I had expected,” said Millar, when they were alone. “I meant to do our doctor a service, by asking him to meet Odgen, who has patronage and influence in every quarter; but I suspect that this evening will be remembered grievously against him.” “I confess I was highly amused at it all, and not sorry to see your friend Ogden so sorely baited. You know well what a life he has led us here for the last week.” “A hard hitter sometimes, to be sure,” said the rector, smiling; “but a well-meaning man, and always ready for a kind action. I wish Layton had used more moderation,--more deference towards him.” “Your Madeira did it all, Millar. Why did you give the fellow such insinuating tipple as that old '31 wine?” “I can't say that I was not forewarned,” continued Millar. “I was told, on his coming down to our neighborhood, to be careful of him. It was even intimated to me that his ungovernable and overbearing temper had wrecked his whole fortune in life; for, of course, one can easily see such a man ought not to be sentenced to the charge of a village dispensary.” “No matter how clever you are, there must be discipline; that's what I've always told the youngsters in my regiment.” The rector sighed; it was one of those hopeless little sighs a man involuntarily heaves when he finds that his companion in a _tête-à-tête_ is always “half an hour behind the coach.”