ost. Not that the
length of life is to be measured by years. I don't know but what it's
possible to cram one's whole existence into a few hours, thanks to that
thief of time," rejoined John Gay pointing to the bottle on the table.

The poet's placid face saddened. John Gay had always taken life as a
pleasure, but there is no pleasure without pain as he had come to
discover. Maybe at that moment a recollection of his follies gave his
conscience a tinge. Of Gay it might be said that he had no enemies other
than himself.

"Oh, the passing hour is the best doubtless, since we never know whether
the next may not be the worst," laughed Henry St. John, Lord
Bolingbroke. "I'll wager Jack Sheppard's best was when the noose was
round his neck. The rascal will trouble nervous folks no more. After all
he was of some use. See that drunken rabble. But for the brave show he
made at Tyburn yesterday, would those ladies and gentlemen be merry
making, think you, and would the tavern keepers and the gin sellers be
putting money in their pockets?"

Gay turned his eyes to the open window.

"I don't want to think of the rascally knave or the rabble either. My
thoughts are on yonder pretty little jade. Look for yourself,
Bolingbroke. You're not so insensible to beauty as Lance Vane is at this
moment."

"Faith, I hope not. Where's the charmer?" said Bolingbroke walking to
the window.

"Stay. She's going to sing. She has the voice of a nightingale. I've
heard her before. Lord! to think she has to do it for a living!"

"Humph. She has courage. Most girls would die rather than rub shoulders
with that frousy, bestial, drunken mob."

"Aye, but that little witch subdues them all with her voice. What says
Will Congreve? Music has charms to soothe a savage breast? Listen."

A girl slight in figure but harmoniously proportioned had placed herself
about two yards from the bow window. She fixed her eyes on Gay and her
pretty mouth curved into a smile. Then she sang. The ditty was "Cold and
Raw," a ballad that two hundred years ago or so, never failed to delight
everybody from the highest to the lowest. She gave it with natural
feeling and without any attempt at display. The voice was untrained but
this did not matter. It was like the trill of a bird, sweet, flexible
and pure toned.

"A voice like that ought not to be battered about. It's meant for
something better than bawling to a mob. What says your lordship?"

Bolingbroke's face had beco