The same night four persons were playing cards in the sky-blue best parlour of Jensen, the chairman of the Parish Council.
They were—besides the host—Aggerbölle the district veterinary surgeon, the old schoolmaster Mortensen, and Villing the shop-keeper. They all belonged to Veilby.
They had been sitting round the same table since ten o'clock in the morning, without other interruptions than those required for meals. The clock now pointed to three. The candles had twice burnt down to the sockets, and four times in the course of the evening had hot water for toddy been brought in from the kitchen. No one yet seemed to think of breaking up the party, though the fumes of the cognac and the smoke from the glowing stove, combined with the thick blue clouds of tobacco which rendered them almost invisible to each other, had considerably cooled their ardour.
Not an unnecessary word was uttered. Half mechanically the cards were thrown on the table, and the tricks taken up. Even little Villing's goggle eyes, which usually were busy enough spying out the cards of the other players, were now blood-shot and starting out of his head like a boiled haddock's; in fact the game only went on because no one had resolution enough to
