reat arm-chair of Utrecht velvet. Then I
pointed to the bottle on the table, and looked at Mr. Hodge, as though
to ask whether he thought a glass of Burgundy would do the patient good.

"No," said the Chaplain. "He's had enough Burgundy. He'd better have a
flask of champagne to give him some spirits. Will you drink a flask of
champagne, Squire?" he continued, addressing his patron in a strangely
authoritative voice.

"Yes," quoth the little man, whose periwig was all Awry, and who looked,
on the whole, a most doleful figure,--"yes, if you please, Mr. Hodge."

"Vastly pretty! And what am I to have? _I_ think I should like some
Burgundy."

"Any thing," murmured the discomfited Squire; "only spare my--"

"Tush! your life's in no danger. _We'll_ take good care of it. And this
most obliging English youth,--will your Honour offer him no refreshment?
What is he to have?"

"Can he drink beer?" asked the Squire, in a faint voice, and averting
his head, as though the having to treat me was too much for him.

"Can you drink beer?" echoed the Chaplain, looking at me, but shaking
his head meanwhile, as if to warn me not to consent to partake of so
cheap a beverage.

"It's very cheap," added Mr. Pinchin, very plaintively. "It isn't a
farthing a glass; and when you get used to it, it's better for the
inwards than burnt brandy. Have a glass of beer, good youth. Kind Mr.
Hodge, let them bring him a glass of Faro."

"Hang your faro! I don't like it," I said, bluntly.

"What will you have, then?" asked the Squire, with a gasp of agony, and
his head still buried in the chair-cushion.

It seemed that the Chaplain's lips, as he looked at me, were mutely
forming the letters W I N E. So I put a bold front upon it, and said,

"Why, I should like, master, to drink your health in a bumper of right
Burgundy with this good Gentleman here."

"He will have Burgundy," whimpered Mr. Pinchin, half to the
chair-cushion, and half to his periwig. "He will have Burgundy. The
ragged, tall young man will have Burgundy at eight livres ten sols the
flask. Oh, let him have it, and let me die! for he and the Parson have
sworn to my Mamma to murder me and have my blood, and leave me among
Smugglers, and Papistry, and Landlords who have sworn to ruin me in
waxen candles."

There was something at once so ludicrous, and yet so Pathetic, in the
little man's lamentations, that I scarcely knew whether to laugh or to
cry. His feelings seemed so very acut