"Have you a hole I can creep into ?" "Up those stairs and into my room with you!" said Crispin shortly.

"I will try to head them off.

Come, man, stir yourself; they are here." Then, as with nimble alacrity Hogan obeyed him and slipped from the room, he turned to the lad, who had been a silent spectator of what had passed.

From the pocket of his threadbare doublet he drew a pack of greasy playing cards.
"To table," he said laconically.
But the boy, comprehending what was required of him, drew back at sight of those cards as one might shrink from a thing unclean.
"Never!" he began.

"I'll not defile--" "To table, fool!" thundered Crispin, with a vehemence few men could have withstood.