ing
also at Howison's companion, who stood close by, with his stick tucked
under his arm.

To this query the only reply was a knowing wink, and a significant wag
of the forefinger, which, when translated, meant--"Come here, friend,
and I'll tell you."

"Get along with you, sir!" said Jacob, contemptuously.

"Thank you, but I won't," replied Howison, saucily.

"No! Then what the devil do you want?"

"You," said the former, emphatically. "But you had better conduct
yourself quietly, for your own sake."

"Now, my good fellow," replied Jacob, in a satirically calm tone,
"_do_ tell me what you mean?"

"Do ye ken such a man as Fairly the tailor?" inquired Howison, who
always affected a degree of playfulness in the execution of this
department of his duties. "Do ye ken Fairly the tailor?" he said, with
an intelligent smile.

"I know no such man, sir; never heard his name before," replied Jacob,
angrily, and now urging his fair protegees onwards--the whole party
having been stopped by the incident just detailed.

"Not so fast, friend," exclaimed Howison, making after his prey, and
again slapping him on the shoulder, but now less ceremoniously. "You
are my prisoner, and here's my authority," he added, pulling out a
crumpled piece of paper. It was the decreet against Simmins. "Although
_you_ don't know Fairly, _I_ happen to know Fairly's surtout. The
short and the long of the matter is, sir," continued Howison, "that I
arrest you at the instance of John Fairly, tailor and clothier, for a
debt of L4:15s., with interest and expenses, said debt being the price
of the identical surtout which you have just now on your back. So come
along quietly, or it may be worse for you."

We do not suppose it is necessary that we should describe the
amazement of the unhappy wearer of the surtout in question, on so very
extraordinary and incomprehensible a statement being made to him, nor
that of his party, from the same cause. The reader will at once
conceive what it was, without any such proceeding on our part.

Confounded, however, and amazed as he was, Jacob's presence of mind
instantly showed him that he was in a dilemma, a regular scrape. That
he must either acknowledge--and, in the presence of all his fair
friends, there was death in the idea--that the surtout he wore, and
which had procured for him so much admiration, was a borrowed one, or
quietly submit to be dragged to jail as the true debtor. Jacob further
saw exactly how