disobey. "Get on with my Lord Tony's supper,
for, if it ain't the best we can do, and 'e not satisfied, see what
you'll get, that's all."

Reluctantly Sally obeyed.

"Is you 'xpecting special guests then to-night, Mr. Jellyband?" asked
Jimmy Pitkin, in a loyal attempt to divert his host's attention from the
circumstances connected with Sally's exit from the room.

"Aye! that I be," replied Jellyband, "friends of my Lord Tony hisself.
Dukes and duchesses from over the water yonder, whom the young lord and
his friend, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, and other young noblemen have helped
out of the clutches of them murderin' devils."

But this was too much for Mr. Hempseed's querulous philosophy.

"Lud!" he said, "what do they do that for, I wonder? I don't 'old not
with interferin' in other folks' ways. As the Scriptures say--"

"Maybe, Mr. 'Empseed," interrupted Jellyband, with biting sarcasm, "as
you're a personal friend of Mr. Pitt, and as you says along with Mr.
Fox: 'Let 'em murder!' says you."

"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," feebly protested Mr. Hempseed, "I dunno as I
ever did."

But Mr. Jellyband had at last succeeded in getting upon his favourite
hobby-horse, and had no intention of dismounting in any hurry.

"Or maybe you've made friends with some of them French chaps 'oo they
do say have come over here o' purpose to make us Englishmen agree with
their murderin' ways."

"I dunno what you mean, Mr. Jellyband," suggested Mr. Hempseed, "all I
know is--"

"All _I_ know is," loudly asserted mine host, "that there was my friend
Peppercorn, 'oo owns the 'Blue-Faced Boar,' an' as true and loyal an
Englishman as you'd see in the land. And now look at 'im!--'E made
friends with some o' them frog-eaters, 'obnobbed with them just as if
they was Englishmen, and not just a lot of immoral, Godforsaking furrin'
spies. Well! and what happened? Peppercorn 'e now ups and talks of
revolutions, and liberty, and down with the aristocrats, just like Mr.
'Empseed over 'ere!"

"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," again interposed Mr. Hempseed feebly, "I
dunno as I ever did--"

Mr. Jellyband had appealed to the company in general, who were
listening awe-struck and open-mouthed at the recital of Mr. Peppercorn's
defalcations. At one table two customers--gentlemen apparently by their
clothes--had pushed aside their half-finished game of dominoes, and had
been listening for some time, and evidently with much amusement at
Mr. Jellyband's internatio