pes and several glasses of brandy and water.

"Take my word for it, Sammy, old man--I ought to know--there's money in
her, and if you'll let her come up to me and the missus we'll put her
through. She's a little beauty."

Miss Mary Ann Simpkins, only lately from a finishing school where young
ladies were duly taught all accomplishments, was, in her finished state,
newly at home, where she was promoted to attending upon, and attracting,
the better-class customers in the old-fashioned bar-parlour, where she
looked like a rose among the lemons, heard of the old professional
friend's proposal, declared that it was just what she would like, and
soon after went to the professional and his missus.

There she studied, as it was termed; in other words, she went under
professors of singing, dancing and dramatic action, who completely
altered her style in a few months, so that she was soon able to make her
debut at the Orphoean, where, to use the theatrical term, she
immediately "caught on," and became a popular star, thoroughly proving
that the P.F. was right as to there being money in her.

In fact, "all London," of a class, flocked to see her and hear her, and
she made so much money for the place of entertainment that its
proprietary determined to rebuild, add, and decorate as richly as
possible while "La Sylphide," as she was called in the bills, was
"resting"; in other words, playing the little hostess of the Tilborough
Arms, attracting customers and bringing more money into her father's
till. People of all degrees were attracted like moths to flutter round
the brilliant little star. All made love, and the most unlikely of all
who seized the opportunity of being served by the clever little maiden
was believed in and won.

On that busy special day, when the town was crowded and the Tilborough
Arms was at its busiest, Sam Simpkins, a heavy, red-faced,
bullet-headed, burly, rather brutal-looking personage, a cross between a
butcher and prize-fighter, with a rustic, shrewd, farmer-like look
thrown in, sat in one of the seats in his fox head, brush, and
sporting-print adorned hall, cross-legged so as to make a desk of his
right knee, upon which he held a big betting-book, wherein, after a good
deal of chewing of the end of a lead-pencil, he kept on making entries,
giving some order between the efforts of writing by shouting into the
bar-parlour, the kitchen, or through a speaking-tube connected with
extensive stables.

I