Bully Pomeroy

The man held a candle in a hand that wavered and strewed tallow
broadcast; the light from this for a moment dazzled the visitors. Then
the draught of air extinguished it, and looking over the servant's
shoulder--he was short and squat--Mr. Thomasson's anxious eyes had a
glimpse of a spacious old-fashioned hall, panelled and furnished in oak,
with here a blazon, and there antlers or a stuffed head. At the farther
end of the hall a wide easy staircase rose, to branch at the first
landing into two flights, that returning formed a gallery round the
apartment.

Between the door and the foot of the staircase, in the warm
glow of an unseen fire, stood a small heavily-carved oak table, with
Jacobean legs, like stuffed trunk-hose. This was strewn with cards,
liquors, glasses, and a china punch-bowl; but especially with cards,
which lay everywhere, not only on the table, but in heaps and batches
beneath and around it, where the careless hands of the players had
flung them.

Yet, for all these cards, the players were only two. One, a man
something under forty, in a peach coat and black satin breeches, sat on
the edge of the table, his eyes on the door and his chair lying at his
feet. It was his voice that had shouted for Jarvey and that now saluted
the arrivals with a boisterous 'Two to one in guineas, it's a catchpoll!
D'ye take me, my lord?'--the while he drummed merrily with his heels on
a leg of the table. His companion, an exhausted young man, thin and
pale, remained in his chair, which he had tilted on its hinder feet; and
contented himself with staring at the doorway.