hour. "I thought so," said the philosophic charioteer. "When a man's
in quod, a woman don't mind her silver spoons;" and he was so delighted
with her action, that he forgot to grumble when she came to settle
accounts with him, even though she gave him only double his fare.

"Take me to him," said she to the young Hebrew who opened the door.

"To whom?" says the sarcastic youth; "there's twenty HIM'S here. You're
precious early."

"To Captain Walker, young man," replied Morgiana haughtily; whereupon
the youth opening the second door, and seeing Mr. Bendigo in a flowered
dressing-gown descending the stairs, exclaimed, "Papa, here's a lady for
the Captain." "I'm come to free him," said she, trembling, and holding
out a bundle of bank-notes. "Here's the amount of your claim, sir--two
hundred and twenty guineas, as you told me last night." The Jew took the
notes, and grinned as he looked at her, and grinned double as he looked
at his son, and begged Mrs. Walker to step into his study and take a
receipt. When the door of that apartment closed upon the lady and his
father, Mr. Bendigo the younger fell back in an agony of laughter, which
it is impossible to describe in words, and presently ran out into a
court where some of the luckless inmates of the house were already
taking the air, and communicated something to them which made those
individuals also laugh as uproariously as he had previously done.

Well, after joyfully taking the receipt from Mr. Bendigo (how her cheeks
flushed and her heart fluttered as she dried it on the blotting-book!),
and after turning very pale again on hearing that the Captain had had a
very bad night: "And well he might, poor dear!" said she (at which Mr.
Bendigo, having no person to grin at, grinned at a marble bust of
Mr. Pitt, which ornamented his sideboard)--Morgiana, I say, these
preliminaries being concluded, was conducted to her husband's apartment,
and once more flinging her arms round her dearest Howard's neck, told
him with one of the sweetest smiles in the world, to make haste and
get up and come home, for breakfast was waiting and the carriage at the
door.

"What do you mean, love?" said the Captain, starting up and looking
exceedingly surprised.

"I mean that my dearest is free; that the odious little creature is
paid--at least the horrid bailiff is."

"Have you been to Baroski?" said Walker, turning very red.

"Howard!" said his wife, quite indignant.

"Did--did your mother