o pass away the time and deceive poor girls
with? Would he remember them,--would he?

"Cat my dear," here cried Mr. Brock, alias Captain, alias Doctor Wood,
"here's the meat a-getting cold, and I am longing for my breakfast."

As they went in he looked her hard in the face. "What, still at it,
you silly girl? I've been watching you these five minutes, Cat; and be
hanged but I think a word from Galgenstein, and you would follow him as
a fly does a treacle-pot!"

They went in to breakfast; but though there was a hot shoulder of mutton
and onion-sauce--Mrs. Catherine's favourite dish--she never touched a
morsel of it.

In the meanwhile Mr. Thomas Billings, in his new clothes which his mamma
had given him, in his new riband which the fair Miss Beinkleider had
tied round his neck, and having his Excellency's breeches wrapped in
a silk handkerchief in his right hand, turned down in the direction of
Whitehall, where the Bavarian Envoy lodged. But, before he waited
on him, Mr. Billings, being excessively pleased with his personal
appearance, made an early visit to Mrs. Briggs, who lived in the
neighbourhood of Swallow Street; and who, after expressing herself with
much enthusiasm regarding her Tommy's good looks, immediately asked him
what he would stand to drink? Raspberry gin being suggested, a pint of
that liquor was sent for; and so great was the confidence and intimacy
subsisting between these two young people, that the reader will be glad
to hear that Mrs. Polly accepted every shilling of the money which Tom
Billings had received from his mamma the day before; nay, could with
difficulty be prevented from seizing upon the cut-velvet breeches which
he was carrying to the nobleman for whom they were made. Having paid his
adieux to Mrs. Polly, Mr. Billings departed to visit his father.

CHAPTER IX. INTERVIEW BETWEEN COUNT GALGENSTEIN AND MASTER THOMAS
BILLINGS, WHEN HE INFORMS THE COUNT OF HIS PARENTAGE.

I don't know in all this miserable world a more miserable spectacle than
that of a young fellow of five or six and forty. The British army, that
nursery of valour, turns out many of the young fellows I mean: who,
having flaunted in dragoon uniforms from seventeen to six-and-thirty;
having bought, sold, or swapped during that period some two hundred
horses; having played, say, fifteen thousand games at billiards; having
drunk some six thousand bottles of wine; having consumed a reasonable
number of Nugee coats, sp