Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/75

 that the superior air of breeding and dignity shone through the disguise of an inferior dress. But it was Michael who replied to him, with the easy familiarity of an old friend, and a tone which seemed unembarrassed by any doubt of the most cordial reception.

“Ha! my dear friend and ingle, Tony Foster!” he exclaimed, seizing upon the unwilling hand, and shaking it with such emphasis as almost to stagger the sturdy frame of the person whom he addressed; “how fares it with you for many a long year?—What! have you altogether forgotten your friend, gossip, and playfellow, Michael Lambourne?”

“Michael Lambourne!” said Foster, looking at him a moment; then dropping his eyes, and with little ceremony extricating his hand from the friendly grasp of the person by whom he was addressed, “are you Michael Lambourne?”

“Ay; sure as you are Anthony Foster,” replied Lambourne.

“’Tis well,” answered his sullen host; “and what may Michael Lambourne expect from his visit hither?”

“Voto a Dios,” answered Lambourne, “I expected a better welcome than I am like to meet, I think”

“Why, thou gallows-bird—thou jail-rat—thou friend of the hangman and his customers,” replied Foster, “hast thou the assurance to expect countenance from any one whose neck is beyond the compass of a Tyburn tippet?”