than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall
never forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here,--you
knows she had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the
urchin; and when she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly that
I had not the heart to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it
stretched out its wee little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it,
and throwed it into my lap."

"Ah! she was a hawful voman, that 'ere!" said Dummie, shaking his head.
"But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good 'ands; for I be's sure you
'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un!"

"I was always a fool about childer," rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; "and I
thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end!
Fill the glass, Dummie."

"I 'as heard as 'ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!" said
Dummie.

"Like enough!" returned Mrs. Lobkins,--"like enough! She was always a
favourite of mine, for she had a spuret [spirit] as big as my own; and
she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she was out of her sinses,
or 'nation like it."

"Ay, I knows as how you liked her,--'cause vy? 'T is not your vay to let
a room to a voman! You says as how 't is not respectable, and you only
likes men to wisit the Mug!"

"And I doesn't like all of them as comes here!" answered the
dame,--"'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 'oman do? Many's
the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, whose money is as good as the
clerk's of the parish. And when a bob [shilling] is in my hand, what
does it sinnify whose hand it was in afore?"

"That's what I call being sinsible and practical," said Dummie,
approvingly. "And after all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not
know a halehouse where a cove is better entertained, nor meets of a
Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug!"

Here the conversation, which the reader must know had been sustained
in a key inaudible to a third person, received a check from Mr. Peter
MacGrawler, who, having finished his revery and his tankard, now rose
to depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he
had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill.
Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at
the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that Mr. MacGrawler
was indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three
farthings.

After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pocket