d Boots, with
a contemptuous shrug, turning away, and brushing at his shoe.

"Never mind him," said good-natured Lavinia. "What shall I say, young
man?"

"Oh, thank you, miss. Say that John Hewlett have brought him a message
from Uphill."

"Jack Owlet! Oh my! Hoo! hoo!" exclaimed the blacking boy, as soon as
Lavinia had disappeared up the stairs, dancing about with his hands on
his hips. "Look here, Tom,"--to a boy with a pail, who had just come
in--"here be an Owlet's just flown in out of the mud. Hoo! hoo! Where
did you get that 'ere patch on your back."

"Where you never got none," responded the other boy. "Mother stitched
it for him."

"Ay, sitting under a hedge, with her pot hung up on three sticks and a
hedgepig in it," added the younger Boots. "Come, own up, young gipsy!
Yer come to get a tanner out of Number Seven with your tales."

"I'm no gipsy," growled John; "but--"

"Come, come," called out Boots, "none of your row. And you, you
impudent tramp, don't ye be larking about here, making the lads idle.
Get out of the yard with ye, or I call the master to you."

The landlord might probably have been far more civil; but poor Johnnie
did not know this, and could only move off to the entrance of the court,
so that when Lavinia in another moment appeared and asked where he was,
Boots answered--

"How should I tell? He was up to mischief with the boys, and I bade him
be off."

"Well, Number Seven is ever so much put about, and he said he would be
down in a jiffy! So there!"

Lavinia held up her skirts, and began in her white stockings to pick her
way across the yard, while Boots sneered, and began brushing his shoe,
and whistling as if quite undisturbed; and in another moment Captain
Carbonel did appear, coming down the stairs very fast, all unshaven, and
with a few clothes hastily thrown on, and quite ran after Lavinia,
passing her as she pointed out beyond the entrance, where John was
disconsolately leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets,
feeling how utterly weary and hungry he was, and with uneasy thoughts
about his father coming over him.

"Oh, there you are, John Hewlett! What is it? No one ill?" exclaimed
the captain.

"No, sir; but,"--coming nearer and lowering his voice--"Jack Swing,
sir."

"Jack Swing! We had notice of him out at Delafield."

John shook his head, and looked down.

"What! Do you know anything, my boy? Here, come in--tell me!"

"Please, s