a profit
out of it,' said Kilne.

'That young chap in Portugal,' added Barnes, 'he won't take to tailoring
when he comes home. D' ye think he will?'

Kilne muttered: 'Can't say!' and Grossby, a kindly creature in his way,
albeit a creditor, reverting to the first subject of their discourse,
ejaculated, 'But what a one he was!--eh?'

'Fine!--to look on,' Kilne assented.

'Well, he was like a Marquis,' said Barnes.

Here the three regarded each other, and laughed, though not loudly. They
instantly checked that unseemliness, and Kilne, as one who rises from
the depths of a calculation with the sum in his head, spoke quite in a
different voice:

'Well, what do you say, gentlemen? shall we adjourn? No use standing
here.'

By the invitation to adjourn, it was well understood by the committee
Kilne addressed, that they were invited to pass his threshold, and
partake of a morning draught. Barnes, the butcher, had no objection
whatever, and if Grossby, a man of milder make, entertained any, the
occasion and common interests to be discussed, advised him to waive
them. In single file these mourners entered the publican's house,
where Kilne, after summoning them from behind the bar, on the important
question, what it should be? and receiving, first, perfect acquiescence
in his views as to what it should be, and then feeble suggestions of
the drink best befitting that early hour and the speaker's particular
constitution, poured out a toothful to each, and one to himself.

'Here's to him, poor fellow!' said Kilne; and was deliberately echoed
twice.

'Now, it wasn't that,' Kilne pursued, pointing to the bottle in
the midst of a smacking of lips, 'that wasn't what got him into
difficulties. It was expensive luckshries. It was being above his
condition. Horses! What's a tradesman got to do with horses? Unless
he's retired! Then he's a gentleman, and can do as he likes. It's no use
trying to be a gentleman if you can't pay for it. It always ends bad.
Why, there was he, consorting with gentlefolks--gay as a lark! Who has
to pay for it?'

Kilne's fellow-victims maintained a rather doleful tributary silence.

'I'm not saying anything against him now,' the publican further
observed. 'It 's too late. And there! I'm sorry he's gone, for one. He
was as kind a hearted a man as ever breathed. And there! perhaps it
was just as much my fault; I couldn't say "No" to him,--dash me, if I
could!'

Lymport was a prosperous town, and in