nd in silence._

_Lady Rose._ And pray, understand that, whether Mr. COLTSFOOT be
viscount or acrobat, it can make no difference whatever to the
disinterested affection with which I have lately learnt to regard him.

[_Gives her hand to_ COLTSFOOT, _who squeezes it with ardour_.

_Coltsf._ (_pleasantly_). Well, Father, Mother, your noble Herlship and
Lady, foster-brother BULLSAYE, and my pretty little sweetart 'ere, what
do you all say to goin' inside and shunting a little garbage, and
shifting a drop or so of lotion, eh?

_The E._ A most sensible suggestion, my boy. Let us make these ancient
walls the scene of the blithest--ahem!--_beano_ they have ever yet
beheld!

[_Cheers from Tenantry, as the_ Earl _leads the way into the Castle
with_ Mrs. HOREHOUND, _followed by_ HOREHOUND _with the Countess
and_ COLTSFOOT _with_ Lady ROSE, Lord BULLSAYE, _discomfited and
abashed, entering last as Curtain falls_.]

* * * * *

KICKED!

(_By the Foot of Clara Groomley._)

CHAPTER IV. AND LAST.

In the little sitting-room above his shop sat Mr. ASSID ROPES. It was
the afternoon before Christmas Day. He had generously allowed all his
assistants to leave. "If anybody wants their hair cut, or their hat
ironed," he said, "I'll do it myself, and then they'll wish they
hadn't."

Yet, when a customer rapped on the floor below, Mr. ROPES felt
exceedingly angry.

"What do you want?" he called down the stairs.

"I want my hat ironed," said a clear, manly voice.

"Go away! Your hat doesn't want ironing. Go to bed!"

"I will not go away," said the clear, firm voice, "until you have
attended to my hat--hat once, if you please."

Mr. ROPES came grumbling down the stairs. For one moment he gazed at the
man in the shop, and then flung his arms round him and wept tears of
joy.

"My dear old friend, CYRIL MUSH!" he exclaimed.

They had been boys together at Eton, and rowed in the Trinity boat
together at Cambridge. Fate had separated them.

In less than a minute they were talking over old times together in the
little sitting-room over the shop. CYRIL MUSH was delighted. "You can't
charge an old friend anything for just ironing his hat," he said, with
his peculiarly winning smile.

Before Mr. ROPES could correct this impression, another voice was heard
in the shop below.

"Can you come down for a minute--to oblige a lady?"

Mr. ROPES descended once more. In a minute he returne