nd placing her hand on the boy's curly head, she said (like
Andromache, dakruon gelasasa, or, as Scott hath it, "With a smile on her
cheek, but a tear in her eye"),--

"Paul, thy heart be good, thy heart be good; thou didst not spill a drop
of the tape! Tell me, my honey, why didst thou lick Tom Tobyson?"

"Because," answered Paul, "he said as how you ought to have been hanged
long ago."

"Tom Tobyson is a good-for-nought," returned the dame, "and deserves to
shove the tumbler [Be whipped at the cart's tail]; I but oh, my child,
be not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen,--it has
been the ruin of many a man afore you; and when two men goes to quarrel
for a 'oman, they doesn't know the natur' of the thing they quarrels
about. Mind thy latter end, Paul, and reverence the old, without axing
what they has been before they passed into the wale of years. Thou mayst
get me my pipe, Paul,--it is upstairs, under the pillow."

While Paul was accomplishing this errand, the lady of the Mug, fixing
her eyes upon Mr. Dunnaker, said, "Dummie, Dummie, if little Paul should
come to be scragged!"

"Whish!" muttered Dummie, glancing over his shoulder at MacGrawler;
"mayhap that gemman--" Here his voice became scarcely audible even to
Mrs. Lobkins; but his whisper seemed to imply an insinuation that the
illustrious editor of "The Asinaeum" might be either an informer, or one
of those heroes on whom an informer subsists.

Mrs. Lobkins's answer, couched in the same key, appeared to satisfy
Dunnaker, for with a look of great contempt he chucked up his head and
said, "Oho! that be all, be it!"

Paul here reappeared with the pipe; and the dame, having filled the
tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from the blower of
Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess
and the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing cheerily
on the countenance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the
picture that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a
Cruikshank. As soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated
to the lady's tube, Mrs. Lobkins, still possessed by the gloomy idea she
had conjured up, repeated,--

"Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged!"

Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathizing puff,
but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, who stood with
mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejaculation