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as regarded the grotesque gurgoyles; for, no natural or artificial light could ever make such stony monsters beautiful; and a bewildered owl, coming suddenly upon one of them, might have dropped its prey out of its claws, from sheer alarm.

The moonbeams also penetrated the little yard at the rear of the Old Hummums, where Huz and Buz had been housed for the night, and where Alphonse was bewailing his separation from Madame in a lugubrious French recitative, to which Huz and Buz added an English chorus, by way of sympathy.

If their united voices—and, as Mrs. Gamp said, "their howls was organs"—kept any one awake, it was certainly not their master, who slept in the front of the hotel, and whose sound slumbers were not even disturbed by the rumble of the early market-carts that brought the treasures of the garden and orchard to Covent Garden Market.

Mr. Bouncer bought a new hat, that fitted his cropped head somewhat better than did his old one; he also restored the parting of his hair to its usual place, and, as much as was possible under impossible circumstances, brushed his hair to make it assume its ordinary appearance. He also called upon Messrs. Stump and Rowdy on that important matter which he designated as "forking out tin:" and, from the little gentleman's pleased appearance at the end of the interview, there was reason to believe that the "tin" had been forked out in a highly satisfactory manner.

He set out for home the next day, accompanied by Alphonse and Huz and Buz, to whom he had explained that the queer-looking little French poodle was intended