Page:Vanity Fair 1848.djvu/72

44 remained of stout Will Steadfast. A hackney coachman had been blown off his coach-box, in Southampton Row—and whither? But the whirlwind tells no tidings of its victim, save his parting scream as he is borne onwards! Horrible night! It was dark, pitch dark; no moon, No, no. No moon. Not a star. Not a little feeble, twinkling, solitary star. There had been one at early evening, but he showed his face, shuddering, for a moment in the black heaven, and then retreated back.

One, two, three! It is the signal that Black Vizard had agreed on.

"Mofy! is that your snum?" said a voice from the area. "I'll gully the dag and bimbole the clicky in a snuffkin."

"Nuffle your clod, and beladle your glumbanions," said Vizard, with a dreadful oath. "This way, men; if they screak, out with your snickers and slick! Look to the pewter room, Blowser.  You, Mark, to the old gaff's mopus box! and I," added he, in a lower but more horrible voice, "I will look to Amelia!"

There was a dead silence. "Ha!" said Vizard, "was that the click of a pistol?"



Or suppose we adopted the genteel rose-water style. The Marquis of Osborne has just despatched his petit tigre with a billet-doux to the Lady Amelia.