frequenters of
Peter's Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived,
while Coney, Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the
street.

"You know what's brewing down there, I suppose?" said Buzzford
mysteriously to the others.

Coney looked at him. "Not the skimmity-ride?"

Buzzford nodded.

"I have my doubts if it will be carried out," said Longways. "If they
are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.

"I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events."

"If I were sure o't I'd lay information," said Longways emphatically.
"'Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that
the Scotchman is a right enough man, and that his lady has been a right
enough 'oman since she came here, and if there was anything wrong about
her afore, that's their business, not ours."

Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must
be owned that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs and
ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something
of that wondrous charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted
penniless young man, who sang ditties as readily as the birds in the
trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him from annoyance showed not quite the
ardour that would have animated it in former days.

"Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher," continued Longways;
"and if we find there's really anything in it, drop a letter to them
most concerned, and advise 'em to keep out of the way?"

This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to
Coney, "Come, my ancient friend; let's move on. There's nothing more to
see here."

These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how
ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said
to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the
Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great
elevation to-day."

To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.

38.

The proceedings had been brief--too brief--to Lucetta whom an
intoxicating Weltlust had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a
great triumph nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered
in her fingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, that her husband
might possibly receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a
degree, seemed not the wildest vision; stranger things had occu