"Buffalo bulls?" said he, half contemptuously; "what do you know about
buffalo bulls?"

"I was one once myself," said Tom, "where I lived before."

Trebooze swore. "Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, sir."

"Well, perhaps I dreamt it," said Tom, placidly; "I remember I dreamt
at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen feet long, and
wanted to eat me up: but you found me too tough about the hump ribs."

Trebooze stared at his audacity.

"You're a rum hand."

To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain; and then began a
regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed himself so
really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed himself into
good-humour, and ended by--

"I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall suit."

Tom had his doubts, but did not express them.

"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's
got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why
can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will
have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I
have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have
you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and
take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it."

"I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on
my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of
dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back."

"Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for
me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at
Trebooze;" and out he swaggered.

"Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to
hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly."

All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening
at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze
entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the
surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past,
courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man
whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the
reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome
too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to
whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario.

But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's
audacity tow