ons of infection at once assailed Mrs. Byass; impossible to admit
under the same roof with her baby a person who had just been ill. This
scruple was, however, overcome; the two rooms at the top of the
house--unfurnished--had been long vacant, owing to fastidiousness in
Mr. and Mrs. Byass, since their last lodger, after a fortnight of
continuous drunkenness, broke the windows, ripped the paper off the
walls, and ended by trying to set fire to the house. Sidney was
intrusted with an outline treaty, to be communicated to Mr. Snowdon.

This discussion was just concluded when Mr. Samuel Byass presented
himself--a slender, large-headed young man, with very light hair
cropped close upon the scalp, and a foolish face screwed into an
expression of facetiousness. He was employed in some clerkly capacity
at a wholesale stationer's in City Road. Having stepped into the room,
he removed a very brown silk hat and laid it on a chair, winking the
while at Sidney with his right eye; then he removed his overcoat,
winking with the left eye. Thus disembarrassed, he strode gravely to
the fireplace, took up the poker, held it in the manner of a weapon
upright against his shoulder, and exclaimed in a severe voice, 'Eyes
right!' Then, converting the poker into a sword, he drew near to Sidney
and affected to practise upon him the military cuts, his features
distorted into grotesque ferocity. Finally, assuming the attitude of a
juggler, he made an attempt to balance the poker perpendicularly upon
his nose, until it fell with a crash, just missing the ornaments on the
mantel-piece. All this time Mrs. Byass shrieked with laughter, with
difficulty keeping her chair.

'Oh, Sam,' she panted forth, her handkerchief at her eyes, 'what a fool
you are! Do stop, or you'll kill me!'

Vastly gratified, Samuel advanced with ludicrous gestures towards the
visitor, held out his hand, and said with affected nasality, 'How do
you do, sir? It's some time since I had the pleasure of seeing you,
sir. I hope you have been pretty tolerable.'

'_Isn't_ he a fool, Mr. Kirkwood?' cried the delighted wife. 'Do just
give him a smack on the side of the head, to please me! Sam, go an'
wash, an' we'll have supper. What do you mean by being so late
to-night?'

'Where's the infant?' asked Mr. Byass, thrusting his hands into his
waistcoat pockets and peering about the room. 'Bring forth the infant!
Let a fond parent look upon his child.'

'Go an' wash, or I'll throw some