love your master's daughter?'

'I do,' said the 'prentice. 'Honour bright. No chaff, you know.'

'Have you,' rejoined Mr Tappertit, catching him by the wrist, and
giving him a look which would have been expressive of the most deadly
malevolence, but for an accidental hiccup that rather interfered with
it; 'have you a--a rival?'

'Not as I know on,' replied the 'prentice.

'If you had now--' said Mr Tappertit--'what would you--eh?--'

The 'prentice looked fierce and clenched his fists.

'It is enough,' cried Mr Tappertit hastily, 'we understand each other.
We are observed. I thank you.'

So saying, he cast him off again; and calling the long comrade aside
after taking a few hasty turns by himself, bade him immediately write
and post against the wall, a notice, proscribing one Joseph Willet
(commonly known as Joe) of Chigwell; forbidding all 'Prentice Knights
to succour, comfort, or hold communion with him; and requiring them,
on pain of excommunication, to molest, hurt, wrong, annoy, and pick
quarrels with the said Joseph, whensoever and wheresoever they, or any
of them, should happen to encounter him.

Having relieved his mind by this energetic proceeding, he condescended
to approach the festive board, and warming by degrees, at length deigned
to preside, and even to enchant the company with a song. After this,
he rose to such a pitch as to consent to regale the society with a
hornpipe, which he actually performed to the music of a fiddle (played
by an ingenious member) with such surpassing agility and brilliancy of
execution, that the spectators could not be sufficiently enthusiastic in
their admiration; and their host protested, with tears in his eyes, that
he had never truly felt his blindness until that moment.

But the host withdrawing--probably to weep in secret--soon returned with
the information that it wanted little more than an hour of day, and that
all the cocks in Barbican had already begun to crow, as if their lives
depended on it. At this intelligence, the 'Prentice Knights arose in
haste, and marshalling into a line, filed off one by one and dispersed
with all speed to their several homes, leaving their leader to pass the
grating last.

'Good night, noble captain,' whispered the blind man as he held it open
for his passage out; 'Farewell, brave general. Bye, bye, illustrious
commander. Good luck go with you for a--conceited, bragging,
empty-headed, duck-legged idiot.'

With which parting word