d to
bear fruit. The following mid-day Joe sent for Ishmael to the Hummums,
and from that comfortable if somewhat dingy hostelry set out, in the
gayest spirits, to track down a money-lender who would oblige on no
better security than his assurance that the Guv'nor would pay up when he
had got over the shock.

Success in this put Killigrew into the wildest spirits, and he forthwith
took unto himself a young man whom he ran into as he and Ishmael were
going into the Blue Posts for a before-dinner drink. The young man was
none other than Carminow, grown very tall and melancholy-looking, with
an extravagantly high collar, much swathed with a voluminous black silk
cravat and a fancy waistcoat. Carminow, who under a manner of deepest
gloom concealed a nature as kind and as disconcertingly morbid as of
yore, was unaffectedly charmed to see his old schoolfellows, and said
so. He had better control over the letter "r" than in his boyhood, but
his employment of it was still uncertain and quite irrational. He linked
an arm in each and said gravely: "Will you come with me to see the
execution at Newgate to-mowwow morning? They are twying new experiments
with the dwop, and it should be intewesting."

"No--are you serious?" demanded Killigrew. "I say, I've half a mind
to.... It might make a jolly fine sketch, mightn't it? Kept quite rough
and suggestive, you know."

"It'd be suggestive all right," remarked Ishmael. Within him a wish to
accept warred with horror, besides which he could not quite make up his
mind whether Carminow were joking or no.

"Splendid," said Carminow; "there's just one moment, when the hangman
pulls on the legs, to make sure, you understand--and the face swells
till it looks as though it would burst the white cap pulled over it, for
all the world like a boiling pudding.... And you see the cawotid artewy
become suffused with a blue bwuise--"

"Cobalt and a touch of _garance_," threw in Killigrew.

"Shut up, Carminow," said Ishmael; "we've not had our drinks yet if you
have." He was rather proud of this, which sounded to him to have quite a
man-about-town twang, and he knew it must have been successful when he
saw his companions pass it without ribald comment.

"Let's all have dinner," said Killigrew exuberantly, "and then go on to
see the new ballet. What d'you say, Carminow?"

Carminow was quite willing, his appointment not being till early next
morning, and the three went off to the "Cheshire Cheese,"