o a trot."

"Didn't I see you turning into your father's house yesterday?"

"I pretty soon turned out of it again. I'm like the monkey when I
venture there--get more kicks than halfpence. Hush, old gentleman! We
interrupt the eloquence."

Of course "the eloquence" applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set
themselves to listen--Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with a
grinning one. But soon a jostle and movement carried them to the outside
of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely out of
hearing. By these means they had a view of the street, and discerned
something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian bear on its
hind legs.

"I'll--be--blest," uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause
of staring consternation, "if I don't believe its Bethel!"

"Bethel!" repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure. "What has
he been doing to himself?"

Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his
travelling costume--something shaggy, terminating all over with tails. A
wild object he looked; and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near, as if
fearing he was a real animal which might bite him.

"What's your name?" cried he.

"It used to be Bethel," replied the wild man, holding out his hand to
Mr. Dill. "So you are in the world, James, and kicking yet?"

"And hope to kick in it for some time to come," replied Mr. James.
"Where did you hail from last? A settlement at the North Pole?"

"Didn't get quite as far. What's the row here?"

"When did you arrive, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"Now. Four o'clock train. I say, what's up?"

"An election; that's all," said Mr. Ebenezer. "Attley went and kicked
the bucket."

"I don't ask about the election; I heard all that at the railway
station," returned Otway Bethel, impatiently. "What's _this_?" waving
his hand at the crowd.

"One of the candidates wasting breath and words--Levison."

"I say," repeated Otway Bethel, looking at Mr. Dill, "wasn't it
rather--rather of the ratherest, for _him_ to oppose Carlyle?"

"Infamous! Contemptible!" was the old gentleman's excited answer. "But
he'll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was
treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare's green pond."

"And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through
the streets," added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a laugh.
"He was smothered into some hot blankets at the