ve the makings of a very nice fellow about him,
and to be just the man after his own heart.

'You're wery good, sir,' said Sam. 'What a lucky feller you are!'

'How do you mean?' inquired the gentleman in blue.

'That 'ere young lady,' replied Sam.'She knows wot's wot, she does. Ah!
I see.' Mr. Weller closed one eye, and shook his head from side to side,
in a manner which was highly gratifying to the personal vanity of the
gentleman in blue.

'I'm afraid your a cunning fellow, Mr. Weller,' said that individual.

'No, no,' said Sam. 'I leave all that 'ere to you. It's a great deal
more in your way than mine, as the gen'l'm'n on the right side o'
the garden vall said to the man on the wrong un, ven the mad bull vos
a-comin' up the lane.'

'Well, well, Mr. Weller,' said the gentleman in blue, 'I think she has
remarked my air and manner, Mr. Weller.'

'I should think she couldn't wery well be off o' that,' said Sam.

'Have you any little thing of that kind in hand, sir?' inquired the
favoured gentleman in blue, drawing a toothpick from his waistcoat
pocket.

'Not exactly,' said Sam. 'There's no daughters at my place, else o'
course I should ha' made up to vun on 'em. As it is, I don't think I
can do with anythin' under a female markis. I might keep up with a young
'ooman o' large property as hadn't a title, if she made wery fierce love
to me. Not else.'

'Of course not, Mr. Weller,' said the gentleman in blue, 'one can't
be troubled, you know; and WE know, Mr. Weller--we, who are men of the
world--that a good uniform must work its way with the women, sooner or
later. In fact, that's the only thing, between you and me, that makes
the service worth entering into.'

'Just so,' said Sam. 'That's it, o' course.'

When this confidential dialogue had gone thus far, glasses were placed
round, and every gentleman ordered what he liked best, before the
public-house shut up. The gentleman in blue, and the man in orange, who
were the chief exquisites of the party, ordered 'cold shrub and water,'
but with the others, gin-and-water, sweet, appeared to be the favourite
beverage. Sam called the greengrocer a 'desp'rate willin,' and ordered
a large bowl of punch--two circumstances which seemed to raise him very
much in the opinion of the selections.

'Gentlemen,' said the man in blue, with an air of the most consummate
dandyism, 'I'll give you the ladies; come.'

'Hear, hear!' said Sam. 'The young mississes.'

Here there