Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/186

182 gives an excellent imitation of the feeble miauw of an invalid member of the feline species.

Perhaps the Left-handed Smasher is tender-hearted, and nourishes an affection for distressed grimalkins; for the door is softly opened—just wide enough to admit Richard and his friend.

The person who opens the door is a young lady, who has apparently being surprised in the act of putting her hair in curl-papers, as she hurriedly thrusts her brush and comb in among the biscuits and meat-pies in a corner of the bar. She is evidently very sleepy, and rather inclined to yawn in Mr. Augustus Darley's face; but as soon as they are safe inside, she fastens the door and resumes her station behind the bar. There is only one gas-lamp alight, and it is rather difficult to believe that the gentleman seated in the easy-chair before an expiring fire in the bar-parlour, his noble head covered with a red cotton bandanna, is neither more nor less than the immortal Left-handed one; but he snores loud enough for the whole prize-ring, and the nervous listener is inclined to wish that he had made a point of clearing his head before he went to sleep.

"Well, Sophia Maria," says Mr. Darley, "are they all up there?" pointing in the direction of a door that leads to the stairs.

"Most every one of 'em, sir; there's no getting 'em to break up, nohow. Mr. Splitters has been and wrote a drama for the Victoria Theayter, and they've been a-chaffing of him awful because there's fifteen murders, and four low-comedy servants that all say, 'No you don't,' in it. The guv'nor had to go up just now, and talk to 'em, for they was a throwin' quart pots at each other, playful."

"Then I'll run up, and speak to them for a minute," said Gus. "Come along, Dick."

"How about your friend, sir," remonstrated the Smasher's Hebe; "he isn't a Cheerful, is he, sir?"

"Oh, I'll answer for him," said Gus. "It's all right, Sophia Maria; bring us a couple of glasses of brandy-and-water hot, and tell the Smasher to step up, when I ring the bell."

Sophia Maria looked doubtfully from Gus to the slumbering host, and said—

"He'll wake up savage if I disturb him. He's off for his first sleep now, and he'll go to bed as soon as the place is clear."

"Never mind, Sophia; wake him up when I ring, and send him upstairs; he'll find something there to put him in a good temper. Come, Dick, tumble up. You know the way."

The Cheerful Cherokees made their proximity known by such a stifling atmosphere of tobacco about the staircase as would have certainly suffocated anyone not initiated in their mysteries. Gus opened the door of a back room on the first floor, of a much