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 the front. A wonderful sweet set, Miss, wiv plenty o' good old ale and stingo in 'em; and on'y a hundred sojers on duty too. And who do you think's the Chapling, Miss? Why, the Reverend Willum Vickerstaff, the drunkenest old crimp wot ever sat in church. By thunder, Missy, I fair envies you, I does, a-sittin' at that window a-lookin' at the musick. I wouldn't give fourpence for them redcoats. For I tell you, Missy, old Snark's a-going to do the thing in style, not a-going to spare a farden of expense, for when Snark does a thing he does it gaudy. By gum, won't them blessed traps at Bow Street just a' bat their eyes."

At that moment I think I could have taken this outrageous little villain in my arms and incontinently hugged him. Instead, however, I fervently apostrophised him.

"God requite you, Mr. Snark," I cried, "for a good man and a true."

I pressed him to accept a purse of fifty guineas over and above the sum agreed upon.

"No, not a blessed head," he replied. "Snark's not a dirty screw, but a man o' fambly and a proper hartiss at his work. Takes a fair pride in it, he does, which is the reason why his reppitation seizes all Bow Street by the belly."

Upon this the worthy creature conducted me up the gloomy stairs to the window that commanded the execution ground. The sight that then confronted me I have often met again in dreams. The immediate look of it was enough to produce a cold