poetical
portion of his frame.

"Same auld feeling," he reflected. "Gormed if I ban't gettin' sweaty
'fore the plaace comes in sight! 'Tis just the sinkin' at the navel,
like what I had when I smoked my first pipe, five-and-forty years
agone!"

The approach of another man steadied Billy, and on recognising him Mr.
Blee forgot all about his former emotions and gasped in the clutch of a
new one. It was Mr. Lezzard, evidently under some impulse of genial
exhilaration. There hung an air of aggression about him, but, though he
moved like a conqueror, his gait was unsteady and his progress slow. He
had wit to guess Billy's errand, however, for he grinned, and leaning
against the hedge waved his stick in the air above his head.

"Aw, Jimmery! if it ban't Blee; an' prinked out for a weddin', tu, by
the looks of it!"

"Not yourn, anyway," snapped back the suitor.

"Well, us caan't say 'zactly--world 's full o' novelties."

"Best pull yourself together, Gaffer, or bad-hearted folks might say you
was bosky-eyed.[10] That ban't no novelty anyway, but 't is early yet to
be drunk--just three o'clock by the church."

[10] _Bosky-eyed_ = intoxicated.

Mr. Blee marched on without waiting for a reply. He knew Lezzard to be
more than seventy years old and usually regarded the ancient man's
rivalry with contempt; but he felt uneasy for a few moments, until the
front door of Mrs. Coomstock's dwelling was opened to him by the lady
herself.

"My stars! You? What a terrible coorious thing!" she said.

"Why for?"

"Come in the parlour. Theer! coorious ban't the word!"

She laughed, a silly laugh and loud. Then she shambled before him to the
sitting-room, and Billy, familiar enough with the apartment, noticed a
bottle of gin in an unusual position upon the table. The liquor stood,
with two glasses and a jug of water, between the Coomstock family Bible,
on its green worsted mat, and a glass shade containing the stuffed
carcass of a fox-terrier. The animal was moth-eaten and its eyes had
fallen out. It could be considered in no sense decorative; but sentiment
allowed the corpse this central position in a sorry scheme of adornment,
for the late timber merchant had loved it. Upon Mrs. Coomstock's parlour
walls hung Biblical German prints in frames of sickly yellow wood; along
the window-ledge geraniums and begonias flourished, though gardeners had
wondered to see their luxuriance, for the windows were seldom opened.

"'It never