f milk would have mixed up with the other contents of the bundle; "but,
perhaps, sir, the kitty would have lapped it up and there would have
been none left. Would you like a cup of tea now, sir? I'm just agoing
to have mine; and if you'd jine me, I'd feel that proud you wouldn't
know me again!"

"Dank 'oo, I'm so dirsty," lisped the little man in affable
acquiescence; and, the next moment, Jupp had spirited out a rough basket
from under the seat in the corner, when extracting a tin can with a cork
stopper therefrom, he put it on the fire to warm up.

From a brown-paper parcel he also turned out some thick slices of bread
that quite put in the shade the half-eaten one belonging to the mite;
and as soon as the tea began to simmer in the tin over the coals, he
poured out some in a pannikin, and handed it to his small guest.

"Now, sir, we'll have a regular picnic," he said hospitably.

"All wite, dat's jolly!" shouted the other in great glee; and the two
were enjoying themselves in the highest camaraderie, when, suddenly, the
door of the waiting-room was opened from without, and the face of a
buxom young woman peered in.

"My good gracious!" exclaimed the apparition, panting out the words as
if suffering from short breath, or from the effects of more rapid
exertion than her physique usually permitted. "If there isn't the young
imp as comfortably as you please; and me a hunting and a wild-goose
chasing on him all over the place! Master Teddy, Master Teddy, you'll
be the death of me some day, that you will!"

Jupp jumped up at once, rightly imagining that this lady's unexpected
appearance would, as he mentally expressed it, "put a stopper" on the
mite's contemplated expedition, and so relieve him of any further
personal anxiety on his behalf, he having been puzzling his brains
vainly for the last half hour how to discover his whereabouts and get
him home to his people again; but, as for the little man himself, he did
not seem in the least put out by the interruption of his plans.

"Dat nussy," was all he said, clutching hold of Jupp's trouser leg, as
at first, in an appealing way: "Don't 'et her, man, tate away poor
kitty!"

"I won't sir, I promise you," whispered Jupp to comfort him; however,
before he could say any more, the panting female had drawn nearer from
the doorway and come up close to the fireplace, the flickering red light
from which made her somewhat rubicund countenance appear all the
ruddier.