The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation¹ when Silas approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and intermittent² when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be puffed³ in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked⁴; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian⁶ jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids⁷ down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts⁸ of beer were a funereal⁹ duty attended with embarrassing sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral disposition¹⁰, accustomed to stand aloof¹¹ from human differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher—