One of Two, Chapter XLVII

Note: original spelling has been maintained.

ONE OF TWO;

or,

A LEFT-HANDED BRIDE.

By Hain Friswell.

THE grand and gracious assembly of the Fraternity of Cogers seemed to swim away into space before the eyes of one of its most eloquent members, as he made that astonished ejaculation lately recorded. As he stared—so said Mr. Slammers—like a “stuck pig,” that very good-natured Bohemian, who was of an iron constitution, and proof against all accidents arising from convivial meetings, at once saw what to do.

Mr. Slammers was as ready with his help as he was with his pen—and, poor fellow, with his money; that is, he was too ready with the two last. The honest fellow suffered from a fatal facility of writing and of giving. No one more ready with a paragraph or with a shilling. The consequence was that neither—from “B. Slammers, Esq.” —seemed to be appreciated.

In any journal, or in any list of charitable donations, his clear, simple, and incisive paragraphs, and his honest subscriptions, were to be found. The first were said to be worth nothing; the second were given, said his charitable friends, for the sake of advertising the initials of B. S. Neither the talent nor the good heart of the man was appreciated; but, en revanche, he never wanted employment, and almost as seldom a shilling. He was fed, as he observed, as the little birds were, by crumbs. He might have added that he was the most industrious of birds himself—always looking after the early worm, and never refusing a crumb, however humble. Hence, as the world never can and never will appreciate ready, modest talent or genius, this jolly old Bohemian, who could have beaten the brains out of the ordinary Quarterly Reviewer, as he then stood—we do not speak of Sydney Smith, Jeffrey, Macaulay, or Southey, but of the ordinary reviews in the old volumes— sank down to be a mere reporter on a daily paper—or rather, for the daily papers.

“ Come along, my young friend—prop yourself up/* said Barnett, as Mr. Scorem let his head fall on his shoulder. “ The chair I has its eye on you. Turn round, face it, and I look round. Here is a reviver.”

So saying, Barnett—with an agility arising from practice—flicked half a pinch of high dried Scotch snuff into the nostrils of the clerk, and even managed to send a grain or two into his eyes.

Scorem was right in a moment. He sneezed violently; and, as a tour de force, rose and made a humorous adieu to his adversaries and supporters, and beat a re> treat with all the honours of war.

But when Barnett and Mr. Checketts got him into the open air, the “poor old man, the aged, and the experienced one,” as he called himself—the one who knew the world and its little ways—collapsed, and could hardly find his way home. Barnett stuck by him. Checketts, with many apologies, was obliged to withdraw. This was painful to Scorem, because the “ fresh air”— so Slammers accounted for it—had only triumphed over his tongue, his legs, his eyes, which had an indistinct vision, and his body generally. As for his brain, that was as clear as ever.

“My dear young fren’,” he ejaculated, looking solemnly at Checketts, “let me be a warn’n’, a sp’c’l warn’n.”

“Bless me,” laughed Checketts, “I’m fly, 'I sir—quite fly. A little overcome, like old Gurgles.”

And then, to cheer his friend, he struck up with his misquotations— “For the best of all ways For to lengthen our days, Is to go to bed early at night, my dear! For oh, the moon shines bright, my dear!” “I dus’n’t! ’ts gaz, the new lights. Your fren' Gug’l’s crib’d Tom Moore. But's improv’d him—I say, ’prov’d him. What says Dr. Watts?— Early to bed, early to rise. Makes a man wealth—’ ” Then he seemed to lose all that he wished to say, and suddenly adjured Checketts not to waste his youth, nor to bring himself to an early and a repentant grave, as the aged individual before him was about to do.

“Do you know where he lives?” asked Slammers, who had, with a workmanlike way, got him into Bride-court, and near a pump. “Just work away at that.”

Checketts soon produced a rush of cold water; and Slammers, taking out a gaily printed pocket handkerchief, soaked it, and wrapped it round the clerk’s head.

“My address!” said that individual, quite soberly and with an effort. “Mr. Checketts, good night—it is late for you.”

He produced a square piece of blue paper, on which was written his name and residence, beautifully engrossed; and Checketts, hearing Slammers promise that he would see his friend all right, sped homewards.

“I am glad he is gone,” said the clerk, quite plainly. “I shall be well soon.”

“ Of course you will, old fellow. You mixed your liquors, I suppose ; and hot rooms and excitement did the rest.”

“ It is not only that? answered Scorem. “ Come along with me, Mr. Slammers. I want you. Give me your arm. My eyes are not quite right yet. Curious, is it not? I never was more sober in my life! Come along.”

So saying, they struck into Shoe-lane, passed through New Street-square and Fetter-lane, and by the time they reached the home of Mr. Scorem, at the top of Gray’s Inn-lane, and nearly opposite Theobald’s road, Scorem was as sober as the proverbial judge.

The good-humoured reporter wished to go home; but the clerk was profuse in his thanks, and especially desired to ask his advice.

“I have a bit of cold mutton and a pickle upstairs, if you will please to walk in. Do be so kind, if you will do me so much honour.”

“I’m honoured myself/’ returned the reporter. “It is not every one who would give me cold mutton and a pickle.”

“I should have thought, now,” returned Scorem, as he showed Mr. Slammers into his room, “that everybody was delighted to know an author. I am.”

“Ah! young one,” returned Slammers, with a sigh—“you arc young! I used to think so once; and now I’d rather that people did not know that I write at all; and so would most men.”

“Why do they put their names to their books?” asked Scorem, striking a flint and steel, and making a blue light and a powerful smell with a bundle of matches spread out like five fingers of a wooden hand. i “Good! Because publishers would not ! buy them without. I once wrote a book myself, and foolishly told my mind and what I thought. Everybody immediately abused me, up hill and down dale. I bound up the criticisms, had them labelled ‘The I Reward of Honesty,’ and retired to the  safety of anonymous journalism. That is the way, my boy, for me. But one proof was not enough. I wrote another book, anonymously: it was highly praised. I was foolish enough to put my name to the second edition: it was as loudly cried down. After that, I did no more. 1 had solved a problem, and I had found that—

‘The post of honour is a private station—wherein you can cut, hack, slash, and stab the reputations of your friends and foes with i a touching impartiality.”

“Is all this true—can it be true?” gasped Scorem.

“True as gospel, my boy,” said the reporter, picking out a pickle from a glass t' bottle. “ They have in some papers in France the articles signed with their names; but we could not stand it here. Men are either—mentally, mind you; we are brave enough else—too cowardly or too good-natured to endure the truth, or to speak it openly.”

Mr. Scorem, solemnly cutting his shoulder of cold mutton, listened and seemed perplexed. He helped Mr. Slammers twice, and forgot himself. Then he took pickles and salt, and began his meal upon those comestibles; but, finding they did not agree with him, left off, put down his fork, and stared at the reporter.

“ What’s the matter, sir?” asked that worthy. “ Are you going to be bad again?”

“ Yes,” returned the clerk, “ very bad indeed!”

“ What is the matter? Are you ill?”

“ Not at all—never better in my life. You tell me you think it dangerous to tell the truth.

“ Yes—sometimes, if not always.”

“ People don’t like it?”

“ Don’t like it!” answered Mr. Slammers, picking up his knife and fork again—“ don’t like it! that’s a mild term—they detest it. It is not pretty, it is not polite, it gets you into hot water, it irritates your enemies, and it estranges your friends. That is a short summary of what it does in this world.”

“ Then I shall tell it, Mr. Slammers,” said the clerk, with a furious cut at the mutton. “Won’t you take any more? No?—then have an apple—I have some prime ones here.”

“ They clear the mouth after smoking,” answered Slammers; “so I will take one, and keep it till after I have had a pipe. You do not eat.”

“ No, I have no appetite at all. I will try to smoke. It is not late—only eleven.”

“ Oh, I can stay up till all is blue,” returned the reporter. “ Don’t get any spirits —I prefer to smoke with beer.”

It was a rather cold night, so Mr. Scorem had providently set fire to the wood and coal in his wide, old-fashioned stove, that was half-way up the chimney, and which seemed to crook its iron elbows over the ash-pit, as the fire winked, glowed, sparkled, and roared up the wide, old chimney.

Scorem sat on one side, with a dry pipe ] in his mouth; Mr. Slammers, with a black I cutty, puffing away opposite to him, and wondering what was coming. What a curious fellow this clever, quick, half-educated, honest ; little clerk was. What did he want with him ?“ People don’t ask me up, and give me cold, mutton and pickles for nothing,” said the cynical reporter to himself. “That is a truth, now, it would not do for me to tell all my friends; but it is a sorrowful fact that when they want anything of me they find me out; when I want anything of them, I never can find them: they don’t come at such times. Hallo! what is he after now?”

Scorem, thinking away for his bare life, had at that moment taken his pipe and dashed it between the two iron elbows of the grate, and then stood up, his eye flashing and his nostril working.

“ Weil?” asked Slammers, with an inquiring look.

“Well, sir,” answered Scorem, “I tell you that I mean to tell the Truth, though it may cost me my place; and it will be sure to hurt one whom I admire more than any one on earth. But it is my duty to do so, and 1 will do it.”

There was such an amount of honest earnestness about the young fellow as he said this, and it was uttered so simply and earnestly, that the reporter—a good fellow, if cynical—caught his hand and shook it, and said—

“ That’s right, stick to it.”

“Then it is right to tell the truth?” said Scorem.

“Fora man, yes,” returned Barnett; “on’y, you see, you must take what turns up. If you’re strong enough, well and good: you will be a better man, if you don’t make 1 friends. But ’ware hawk if you are not, that’s all. Now, what are you after?”

“Sit down and tell me all about that murder. I want to hear all.”

“Murder! Does what you are troubled about concern that?”

“ I think so. Since I have known about I it, I have been haunted as if by a dream.”

“ A regular Maria Martin case,” returned the reporter, staring with all his might. “Was it a dream?”

“ No,” answered the clerk, “ nothing of the sort—only something has struck me.

“ Do you know all the circumstances?”

“ I ought to,” returned the reporter. “ I was with Inspector Stevenson this afternoon,pumping him pretty well. You know, for our kind of literature, we are obliged to keep pretty good friends with the officers of the different courts.”

“ Does he know all about it?”

“ I should think so. He has got the case in hand; and he has set on the cleverest ! man about these matters—Old Daylight, asthey call him.”

“ Who is he?”

“ Mr. Tom Forster.”

“ A stout old gentleman, with a nobby hat and Hessian boots?”

“ The very identical. I think I see him now. He can see about as far through a millstone as any man.”

“ And he is after the criminal?”

“ Yes; and will be sure to nab him, if he be the King on his throne. He’s sure to get the man, or the one next door to him, I can tell you.”

“ He called at my governor’s the other afternoon. My governor is Mr. Edgar Wade, the barrister.”

“ Ah! very likely. He was named as likely to defend a party implicated,” returned the reporter. “ I wonder at that, being so young; but he bears a wonderfully good name.”

“ He is clever,” returned Scorem, with a sigh.

“ That is as much as to say he is not much else,” thought the reporter; but he held his peace.

Scorem was silent, too, for some time. Then he got up, and walked about his room nervously. At last he said—

“ Pray go on, Mr. Slammers. Tell me all you told me about that murder when I felt so sick and unwell, and as much more as you can.”

“All right!” answered the gentleman appealed to.

His host drew his chair to the fire; and Mr. Slammers gave a very picturesque and vivid description of the scene at Acacia Cottage, drawn out of obscure hints and pieces of conversation which he had gathered at various times, and brought closely together with that marvellous and lifelike facility which is so much admired by readers of the chronicles of crime.

During the whole time of the narration, Mr. Scorem sat still, listening very patiently —save now and then when he put a leading question to his companion; and no Old Bailey barrister could have been more shrewd, as Barnett Slammers afterwards remarked.

How had the poor woman been struck? Did it appear, or was it known whether the assailant was young or old ? If young, upon what inference? Was there any weapon found? And such like questions were asked, until Scorem knew as much as his informant, and expressed himself satisfied. Then he thanked his guest heartily, and said that he had a duty to perform.

“ Why, you don’t mean to say you have anything to do with it?” asked Mr. Slammers, wonderingly.

“ Thank God! not I,” returned Scorem, piously. “But circumstances have let me into something of which I must speak. Can I see Inspector Stevenson?”

“ No doubt you can, to-morrow.”

“ Will you take me to him?”

“ If you want me to, with pleasure. But now, my good sir—now I have told you everything, perhaps you will tell me what you wanted in consulting me?”

It was now Scorem’s turn to turn pale and hesitate. He walked restlessly across the room; then he went to the door and fasteped it; then he drew near Mr. Slammers, and spoke in a low tone—

“It was the day after that murder that I discovered something. On that night, the governor I don’t think slept at his house in Queen Anne-street!”

The reporter started, and watched the clerk eagerly.

“ You see, I am going to be out with it all. I mean to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—so help me Heaven! I am passing the Rubicon, as they say in speeches down at the Cogers\ You must not mind if I am a little distressed. I fancy he did not go home, because the grate in his room, which I had raked out, was yet warm, and full of coal and cinders burnt to a hollow. The laundress was ill—and she is a good old girl, and often does me a good turn—so I came early to dust the chambers and to light the fire. The wood that I had left had been burnt, and in the ashes were some greasy fragments of a woollen fabric and four buttons. There they are—trousers strap buttons, stamped ‘ Howie, Conduit-street.’ ”

“Good God!” cried the reporter.

“Governor gets his trousers made there. Regular swell place, I can tell you.”

“But is that all? He might have burnt the legs of a pair of old kickseys for a lark,” urged the reporter.

“That is not all,” said Scorem. “Going over the old Turkey carpet, I kicked against something under it; and, when I had lighted the fire, I said, * That’s a precious nail that has worked up out of these creaking old boards, which bend under your tread—I’ll knock it down.’ It wasn’t a nail, but a flat steel button; and, sure enough, it had been tight down, but my running across had made it spring up. It had been pushed in, up to its head, between the boards. Here it is.”

And Mr. Scorem pulled out about eleven inches of the end of a bright steel foil!

The reporter started when he saw it.

MR. TOM FORSTER LEARNS SOMETHING WHICH DOES NOT WHOLLY PLEASE HIM.

UPON the mind of Mr. Tom Forster the words of Pere Martin had a somewhat astonishing effect. There was so great an air of truth and simplicity about the man, that, in spite of his coolness and his cunning, the old Bow-street runner was assured that what he said was true.

At the same time, the reflection occurred, again and again, that all was not right with Mr. Edgar Wade.

That learned young barrister had been out at all hours; had paid little or no attention to the poor sick lady at home; and was, indeed, himself far from well. Excitement and the disappointment in love began to tell upon him. Pale, languid, and with a hacking cough, the barrister moved restlessly about from his chambers to Queen Anne-street, almost without a purpose, and doing little in his business or at home.

“ What,” asked Old Daylight of himself, “is the secret influence this woman has over him? The coolest and wisest men lose their heads when in love. I will go and see her. I may find out some way to help him yet It is a pity he should suffer so much, just now especially.”

With Old Daylight a resolve was half the battle. What he determined to do was soon done. He soon ascertained from his friend, Mr. Rolt, the whereabouts of Natalie; and, on the very afternoon upon which he had determined to see her, stood outside the little villa, where the apple trees were showing yellow leaves, and autumn was tinting with its sober hues the elms of the neighbouring park and the “grove” which rejoiced in the name of “ Lisson.” The Virginian creeper which ran up the front of the house was turning to a dusky, yellowish brown, not yet having achieved the brilliant red hue in which it gloriously dies; and the sad, dull autumn evening harmonized with the quiet and stillness of the suburban dwelling.

“ A snug little box,” said Forster to himself. “ Just the kind of nest to find such a bird in. I suppose there’s some theatrical swell about, for I noticed his trap outside.”

The trap outside was a well-appointed hooded cab, with a footboard outside at the back, upon which a smart groom perched, swinging by two leathern straps pendent from the hood. When the master was out, the groom jumped inside, as had the gentleman who looked after the one in question, who was quietly walking the horse up and down, in sight of the villa gate, and voting the occupation an “infernal slow” one.

“ These pretty birds,” said the old man, philosophically, “ might well be called decoy ducks, because they do draw empty young men, with lots of money, after them.

I wonder what the drama would be without them? And dramatic authors, too. I heard one of them talking to Rolt. ‘ Have you seen my piece?* says he. ‘ How the people crowd to see it!* When Rolt had just been telling me that the great attraction was a new actress, the next was the scenery, the third the orchestra, and the fourth the fittings of the house. It’s a mixed life we lead, to be sure!” continued the old gentleman, after a pause. “It’s all right, I dare say; but there’s I nothing pure—there’s no man out without I lots of mixed motives. They talk about the poetic drama now. Poetic drama!—as if anybody but an old fool like me goes and sees things for the poetry in them.”

He had rung the bell; and the neat English servant ushered him into the small dining-room, and took his card, before he  had hardly made up his mind what to say —as he generally let himself depend upon what first “ turned up.”

“ It’s no use priming yourself,” he used to say. “ Wait for the speech Providence sends you. Only make up your mind what to do, and you will find out how to do it.”

The small villas such as we have described —built at a bad time, when slight brickwork and plenty of stucco served for substantiality—were admirable places to hear in; and Mr. Forster had not been long in the quiet little house before he heard an excellent, merry little French song, given with great spirit; and then two gruff voices uttering applauding sounds.

“ Why, I am right about that cab,” said Old Daylight. “ It is a new manager. The little woman has made a hit with her benefit”

“Bravo! Natalie,” said the loud, high toned, coarse voice. “ You do the thing to rights. I always said you could. She’s a dangerous little woman, ar’n’t she, Peter?”

“She is very clever and beguiling, no doubt; and understands her profession,” returned a gentleman, in a more sober voice.

“Umph! two of them,” returned Daylight.

“ They ar’n’t professionals. That’s not the way they would talk.”

Then Old Daylight heard the door open, and the subdued voice of the servant as she presented the card.

“Forster!—don’t know such man,” said Natalie. “Whose like is he?”

“A stout gentleman,” or some such words, was the answer; for Natalie said—

“Stout! what means stout?”

“ Fat— gras, brave homme, comme moi ,” said the first voice. “Some one come to make you an offer of marriage, Natalie.”

“Very good—tell him wait.” And she added, firmly, “ He must be a rich man and a nobleman. I do not ally myself with common people—I, who am artiste .”

There was a roar of laughter at this from one of the gentlemen—no others than Lord Montcastel and the Hon. and Rev. Peter Boore; but the gentleman who did not laugh was just the one whose laughter would have hurt Natalie.

She saw her advantage; and looking at the nobleman, with a sigh and a pretty look, she passed her soft hand over his forehead in a caressing way, and called him “ a dear, sweet, good papa.”

“It is not any sweetheart,” she told his lordship, in effect, “ but some one upon business;” and after seeing him she would dismiss him, and come back again. And so away she sailed, flinging a Parthian glance after her, and rendering his enamoured lordship more in love than ever.

“ Peter, my boy,” said that nobleman, after a pause, when the door had closed behind him, “ I think I shall settle.”

“You will, indeed,”said the clergyman— who had a wife, one sweet infant named Dermot, and a large family in perspective. “And if you do, what is to become of us?” he thought; but he said nothing about that— “You will, indeed, if you many an actress; and you a nobleman in the peerage of Great Britain!”

“What does that matter? Did not our grandfather many the servant at a Swiss hotel? and are we any the worse for it?”

“ I don’t know that we are any the better; and I know that we are a precious deal poorer. Why can’t you do as others do? There are many fortunes would be glad of your title; and would put up with you, in your old age, for the sake of it.”

“ Umph !” grunted his lordship, showing his teeth unpleasantly.

That little reference to his age nettled him. He was of that mature time of life in which a man finds that there are very few enjoyments left him; that he cannot eat as he did when young, nor drink, nor racket, nor stay up late; and that play damages his fortune as well as ruins his health; and that he had better husband what resources he has, and go in for a quiet life. Selfish as Lord Montcastel always was and always would be, he was shrewd enough to know that money did not purchase everything, and that a wife of a rich family, with her money carefully settled upon herself and her children, would not add greatly to his own happiness. And so, saturnine and dull in temper himself, and extremely taken with the lightsome flow of spirits that Natalie always assumed when she saw him, he determined long before this, and had taken the necessary steps, to make a matrimonial alliance such as that which his clerical brother, who was his heir-presumptive, had always dreaded. And it must be said, in justice to that reverend gentleman, and in exculpation of the too faithful historian who has shown him, in those rude days, behind the scenes and at the house of an actress, that he went with his brother as a mentor, and to save his house from any trouble or disgrace.

Natalie approached Mr. Tom Forster in so winning a way, that that gentleman could not but be taken with her. The little woman was an artist in her address, and never threw a smile or a courtesy away. Clear and clever as the old man was, he hesitated before he spoke to her; and Mdlle. Fifine had to inquire the purpose of his visit twice before she received an answer.

At length he said, in a low tone—for he did not wish the gentlemen in the other room to overhear him—

“I am a friend of Mr. Edgar Wade—a very old friend, mademoiselle; and I claim the privilege of visiting you on his behalf. You know him, I am sure; for he visits you.”

“ Oh, yes,” said Natalie, her cheerful smile vanishing at once. “ A very nice gentleman, who loves art, and who has made me some presents. Did he send you to me? Has he sent a letter? if so, let me have it and rejoin my guests.”

“ I cannot say that he has sent a letter, or any message/* returned Old Forster, bluntly. “ I am come to say that he is very ill at ease about you.”

“Are you his doctor? Poor man, he must get well. I can do nothing with him.”

“ He, I believe, loves you very dearly, and would put his future in your hands. He is at present but a poor barrister.”

“ What is that?”

“ What you call an avocalt ,” returned Forster. “ You know that, I suppose. He may rise, and become a great man.”

“ Ah,” thought the old fellow, “ if she only knew what a great man he really is, how the little Delilah would snap him up! ”

“I hope he will; but he is poor now, he tells me.”

She said this simply.

“ Yes,” returned Forster. “ Not so rich as he will be.”

“Ah! that ‘will be.' My good friend, I am impatient at waiting for it. It never comes—never! I have known many young girls grow old women waiting for ‘ will be/ I will take what I can get.”

“ Have you told Mr. Wade so?”

“ Yes. If he were here now I should tell him so more plainly. I am going, I hope, to marry a rich man—an English milord. You may tell your friend so, if you come to bother me with an offer. Your friend is good-looking and tall, a fine man; but so triste, so dull—like an English day in autumn. I do not like these young men. They are so selfish, too. I have told him to go away.”

This was not exactly true, as it was only within the last few hours that Lord Montcastel and Natalie had come to an understanding.

Old Forster whistled as she said this. So it had come to that! The infatuated young man had offered to marry her, and she had refused him! Well, it was as well as it was. But, poor young fellow, to be so treated just as a brilliant prospect opened before him!

“Men,” thought the old man, “are often blamed for really hating women. But do not some women deserve it?”

“ So I will, if you please, say good evening—my friends are awaiting me. Give my respects to M. Edgar Wade, thank him for his kindness, and tell him—but it must be a secret from anybody else, and I am sure I can trust him and you—it will put him at rest, too, poor fellow; for he is of a very jealous nature, and I do .so hate jealous people—tell him that the Natalie Fifine whom he used to admire so as an artiste will be glad to receive him as Madame la Marquise de Montcastel!”

The little woman rose upon her feet as she said this, and swept back with a grand tragedy air. The clear, keen whisper cut the air, and pierced the ear of the old man like the hiss of a snake, and made him feel uncomfortable. He rose at once.

“I will go, mademoiselle,” he said, politely; “ but you will excuse me carrying that message.”

“ Eh! well, never mind. Say nothing to any one. He will see it in the papers,Good evening, mons’r.”

“Here's a complication!” thought Old 1 Forster. “Tell him! Not if I know it; if ’ I did so I should kill him, worried and ill as he is. And she to marry that old man! i! Well, well—what will not woman do for money?”

The groom, seeing a gentleman emerge while he was at a distance, came up at a short trot, but was disappointed again, and drove away.

“That's his lordship’s cab, is it?” said, Old Forster. “ How I should like to drive home in it. But, no; I’ll just run round to Homer-street, and see whether there are any messages. Precious glad the little girl has hooked any one else but my boy. Is i that all the mischief? If so, there will be a sudden burst, and he will live it down. But no, no—there’s something else.”

And, with a sense of impending evil against the man he loved so well, the old fellow trotted away, in his creaking Hessians, towards Homer-street.

And Natalie Fifine, feeling a great elationat having got rid of an unpleasant suitor, t burst into the room where her guests were yawning, and commenced singing Bdranger’s “ King of Yvetot,” in the most joyous tones:— “II était un roi d' Yvetot, Peu connu dans l’histoire; Se levant tard, se couchant tot Dormant fort bien sans gloire.” And cracking his fingers, and grinning with delight, Lord Montcastel, with a deep voice, caught up the spirit of the syren, and joined in the chorus— “ Oh! oh! oh! oh! Ah! ah! ah! ah! Quel bon petit roi c’etait la!La! la!” “ Well, I’m blowed,” said the groom, with his teeth chattering, as he leant over the wooden apron which shut him in the cabriolet, “the old man’s merry to-night. I shouldn’t wonder if he came away ’tosticated—shouldn’t care if he did, on’y them fellows are so beastly selfish. When they’re inside they never thinks of us poor fellows outside. It’s the way of the world. And the poor animile—he wants a mouthful o’ oats, too!”