said his landlady.

"Show him up," languidly replied our lover, throwing his aching head from
his right to his left hand.

"Vell, Jim, vot's the matter!" demanded he--"How's your missus?"

"She ain't no missus o' mine no longer," replied Jim.

"How?"

"I tell you vot it is, sir, she promised to give me a shillin'-aweek an'
my feed; an' she ain't done vun thing nor t' other; for I'm bless'd if I
ain't starved, and ain't seen the color of her money sin' I bin there.
Father's goin' to summon her."

"It's some mistake, sure?"

"It's no mistake tho'," persisted Jim, "an' I can tell you she ain't got
a farden to bless herself vith!--an' she's over head-and-ears in debt
too, I can tell you; an' she pays nobody--puttin' 'em all off, vith
promises to pay wen she's married."

"My heye!" exclaimed the excited Wiggins, thrown all a-back by this very
agreeable intention upon his funds.

"More nor that, sir," continued the revengeful Jim, "I know she thinks as
she's hooked a preshus flat, an' means to marry you outright jist for vot
she can get. An' von't she scatter the dibs?--that's all; she's the
extravagantest 'ooman as hever I came anigh to."

"But, (dear me! ) she has a good stock--?"

"Dummies, sir, all dummies."

"Dummies?"

"Yes, sir; the sugars on the shelves is all dummies--wooden 'uns, done up
in paper! The herrin' tub is on'y got a few at top--the rest's all
shavins an' waste.--There's plenty o' salt to be sure--but the werry
soap-box is all made up."

"And so's my mind!" emphatically exclaimed the deluded Wiggins, slapping
the breakfast-table with his clenched fist.

"Jim--Jim--you're a honest lad, and there's half-a-crown for you--"

"Thank'ye for me, sir," said the errand-boy, grinning with delight--
"and--and you'll cut the missus, Sir!"

"For ever!--"

"Hooray! I said as how I'd have my rewenge!" cried the lad, and pulling
the front of his straight hair, as an apology for a bow, he retreated
from the room.

"What an escape!" soliloquized Wiggins-- "Should n't I ha' bin properly
hampered? that's all. No more insinniwating widows for me!--"

And so ended the Courtship of Mr. Wiggins.

SCENE XXII.

The Itinerant Musician.

A wandering son of Apollo, with a shocking bad hat, encircled by a
melancholy piece of rusty crape, and arrayed in garments that had once
shone with renovated splendour in that mart of second-hand habiliments
'ycleped Monmouth-street, was affrighting the e