nment, bravado and
audacity.

"What's the lay?" he said, with a chuckle.

"To accompany a lady to Kentish Town Junction, and see her safe into the
midnight train--that's all."

Drayton laughed outright.

"Of course it is," he said.

"The lady will be here shortly before midnight."

"Of course she will."

Hugh Ritson's face lost its smiles.

"Don't laugh like that--I won't have it!"

Mr. Drayton made another application to the spirit bottle, and then
leaned toward Hugh Ritson over the arm of his chair.

"Look here," he said, "it's just a matter o' thirty years gone August
since my mother put me into swaddling clothes, and deng my buttons if
I'm wearing 'em yet!"

"What do you mean, my friend?" said Hugh.

Drayton chuckled contemptuously.

"Speak out plain," he said. "Give the work its right name. I ain't
afraid for you to say it. A man don't give twenty pounds for the like o'
that. Not if he works for it honest, same as me. I'm a licensed
victualer, and a gentleman--that's what I am, if you want to know."

Hugh Ritson repudiated all unnecessary curiosity, whereupon Mr. Drayton
again had recourse to the spirit bottle, mentioned afresh his profession
and pretensions, and wound up by a relative inquiry, "And what do you
call yourself?"

Hugh did not immediately gratify Mr. Drayton's curiosity.

"Quite right, Mr. Drayton," he said; "I know all about you. Shall I tell
you why you went to Cumberland?"

Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton
took out of his pocket a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to
charge a discolored meerschaum pipe.

"Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown
herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her
child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she
had lodged."

Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee; but, as the wice-chairman says,
'we'll take it as read,' so we will."

Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked
vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this;
but one day you were told by the young girl whom circumstances had cast
on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland
there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance.
That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your
mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the
misfortune to be poor