a lot of stones hardly so useful as the
flags in the street, and then they vanish from us, leaving us nothing
to repay us for our labour." All which Mr. Camperdown did not quite
understand. Mr. Dove would be paid for his labour,--as to which,
however, Mr. Camperdown knew well that no human being was more
indifferent than Mr. Dove.

There was much sorrow, too, among the police. They had no doubt
succeeded in sending two scoundrels out of the social world, probably
for life, and had succeeded in avoiding the reproach which a great
robbery, unaccounted for, always entails upon them. But it was sad to
them that the property should altogether have been lost, and sad also
that they should have been constrained to allow Billy Cann to escape
out of their hands. Perhaps the sadness may have been lessened to a
certain degree in the breast of the great Mr. Gager by the charms
and graces of Patience Crabstick, to whom he kept his word by making
her his wife. This fact,--or rather the prospect of this fact, as it
then was,--had also come to the knowledge of the learned serjeant,
and, in his hands, had served to add another interest to the trial.
Mr. Gager, when examined on the subject, did not attempt to deny
the impeachment, and expressed a strong opinion that, though Miss
Crabstick had given way to temptation under the wiles of the Jew, she
would make an honest and an excellent wife. In which expectation let
us trust that he may not be deceived.

Amusement had, indeed, been expected from other sources which failed.
Mrs. Carbuncle had been summoned, and Lord George; but both of them
had left town before the summons could reach them. It was rumoured
that Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, had gone to join her husband
at New York. At any rate, she disappeared altogether from London,
leaving behind her an amount of debts which showed how extremely
liberal in their dealings the great tradesmen of London will
occasionally be. There were milliners' bills which had been running
for three years, and horse-dealers had given her credit year after
year, though they had scarcely ever seen the colour of her money.
One account, however, she had honestly settled. The hotel-keeper in
Albemarle Street had been paid, and all the tribute had been packed
and carried off from the scene of the proposed wedding banquet. What
became of Lord George for the next six months, nobody ever knew; but
he appeared at Melton in the following November, and I do not