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144 Mr. William Howard Russell, and his friend Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert!"

Those noble gentlemen, having a natural dislike to be confronted with so low a person as Mr. Bill Troutling, had, the instant public interest was directed from them, silently disappeared from a scene where their rank in life seemed so little regarded. If, reader, you should be anxious to learn from what part of the world the transitory visitants appeared, know, that they were spirits sent by that inimitable magician, Long Ned, partly to report how matters fared in the court; for Mr. Pepper,—in pursuance of that old policy which teaches that the nearer the fox is to the hunters, the more chance he has of being overlooked,—had, immediately on his abrupt departure from Paul, dived into a house in the very street where his ingenuity had displayed itself, and in which oysters and ale nightly allured and regaled an assembly that, to speak impartially, was more numerous than select: there had he learnt how a pickpocket had been seized for unlawful affection to another man's watch, and there,