that, when they were once fairly rid of him, each should be at liberty, as before, to prefer his own claim.

"I have thought of a subject," said the little tailor, turning very red, and hemming and hawing a great deal. "I've thought, I say, of a pint, which may be resorted to with advantage at the present juncture, and in which each of us may be useful to the other. An exchange, Mr. Eglantine, do you take ?"

"Do you mean an accommodation-bill ?" said Eglantine, whose mind ran a good deal on that species of exchange.

"Pooh, nonsense, sir. The name of our firm is, I flatter myself, a little more up in the market than some other people's names."

"Do you mean to insult the name of Archibald Eglantine, sir ? I'd have you to know that at three months

"Nonsense!" says Mr. Woolsey, mastering his emotion; "there's no use a-quarrelling, Mr. E.; we're not in love with each other, I know that. You wish me hanged, or as good, I know that!

"Indeed I don't, sir!"

"You do, sir; I tell you, you do? and what's more, I wish the same to you transported, at any rate! But as two sailors, when a boat's a-sinking, though they hate each other ever so much, will help and bale the boat out; so, sir, let us act: let us be the two sailors."

“Bail, sir!” said Eglantine, as usual mistaking the drift of the argument, “I'll bail no man! If you're in difficulties, I think you had better go to your senior partner, Mr. Woolsey ;" and Eglantine's cowardly little soul was filled with a savage satisfaction to think that his enemy was in distress, and had actually been obliged to come to him for succour.

"You're enough to make Job swear, you great, fat, stupid, lazy, old barber!" roared Mr. Woolsey, in a fury.

Eglantine jumped up and made for the bell-rope. The gallant little tailor laughed.

"There's no need to call in Betsy," said he, "I'm not a-going to eat you, Eglantine; you're a bigger man than me: if you were just to fall on me, you'd smother me! Just sit still on the sofa and listen to reason."

"Well, sir, pro-ceed," said the barber with a gasp.

"Now, listen! What's the darling wish of your heart? I know it, sir! you've told it to Mr. Tressle, sir, and other gents at the club. The darling wish of your heart, sir, is to have a slap-up coat turned out of the ateliers of Messrs. Linsey, Woolsey and Company. You said you'd give twenty guineas for one of our coats, you know you did! Lord Bolsterton's a fatter man than you, and look what a figure we turn him out. Can any firm in England dress Lord Bolsterton but us, so as to make his lordship look decent? I defy 'em, sir! We could have given Daniel Lambert a figure!"

"If I want a coat, sir," said Mr. Eglantine, "and I don't deny it, there's some people want a head of hair!"

"That's the very point I was coming to," said the tailor, resuming the violent blush which was mentioned as having suffused his countenance at the beginning of the conversation. "Let us have terms of mutual accommodation. Make me a wig, Mr. Eglantine, and though I never yet cut a yard of cloth except for a gentleman, I'll pledge you my word I'll make you a coat." "Will you, honour bright ?" says Eglantine.

"Honour bright," says the tailor. "Look!" and in an instant he drew from his pocket one of those slips of parchment which gentlemen of his profession carry, and putting Eglantine into the proper position, began to take the preliminary observations. He felt Eglantine's heart thump with happiness as his measure passed over that soft part of the perfumer's person.

Then putting down the window-blind, and looking that the door was locked, and blushing still more deeply than ever, the tailor seated himself in an arm-chair towards which Mr. Eglantine beckoned him, and, taking off his black wig, exposed his head to the great perruquier's gaze. Mr. Eglantine looked at it, measured it, manipulated it, sat for three minutes with his head in his hand and his elbow on his knee gazing at the tailor's cranium with all his might, walked round it twice or thrice, and then said, "It's enough, Mr. Woolsey, consider the job as done. said he, with a greatly relieved air, "and now, Woolsey, let us 'ave a glass of curaçoa to celebrate this hauspicious meeting." The tailor, however, stiffly replied that he never drunk in a

UCL. IV.

And now, sir,"

K

morning, and left the room without offering to shake Mr. Eglantine by the hand, for he despised that gentleman very heartily, and himself, too, for coming to any compromise with him, and for so far demeaning himself as to make a coat for a barber.

Looking from his chambers on the other side of the street, that inevitable Mr. Walker saw the tailor issuing from the perfumer's shop, and was at no loss to guess that something extraordinary must be in progress when two such bitter enemies met together.

CHAPTER III.

WHAT CAME OF MR. WALKER'S DISCOVERY OF THE BOOTJACK.

It is very easy to state how the captain came to take up that proud position at the Bootjack which we have een him occupy on the evening when the sound of the fatal "brava " so astonished Mr. Eglantine.

The mere entry into the establishment was, of course, not difficult. Any person by simply uttering the words, “A pint of beer," was free of the Bootjack; and it was some such watchword that Howard Walker employed when he made his first appearance. He requested to be shown into a parlour where he might repose himself for a while, and was ushered into that very sanctum where the Kidney Club met. Then he stated that the beer was the best he had ever tasted, except in Bavaria, and in some parts of Spain, he added; and professing to be extremely "peckish," requested to know if there were any cold meat in the house whereof he could make a dinner.

"I don't usually dine at this hour, landlord," said he, flinging down a half-sovereign for payment of the beer; "but your parlour looks so comfortable and the Windsor chairs are SO snug, that I'm sure I could not dine better at the first club in London."

"One of the first clubs in London is held in this very rooni,' said Mr. Crump, very well pleased; "and attended by some of the best gents in town, too. We call it the Kidney Club.'

"Why, bless my soul! it is the very club my friend, Eglantine,

has so often talked to me about, and attended by some of the tip-top tradesmen of the metropolis!'

"There's better men here than Mr. Eglantine," replied Mr. Crump; "though he's a good man-I don't say he's not a good man-but there's better. Mr. Clinker, sir; Mr. Woolsey, of the house of Linsey, Woolsey and Co."

"The great army-clothiers!" cried Walker; "the first house in town!" and so continued, with exceeding urbanity, holding conversation with Mr. Crump, until the honest landlord retired delighted, and told Mrs. Crump in the bar that there was a tiptop swell in the Kidney parlour, who was a-going to have his dinner there.

Fortune favoured the brave captain in every way, it was just Mr. Crump's own dinner-hour; and on Mrs. Crump's stepping into the parlour to ask the guest whether he would like a slice of the joint to which the family were about to sit down, fancy that lady's start of astonishment at recognising Mr. Eglantine's facetious friend of the day before. The captain at once demanded permission to partake of the joint at the family table; the lady could not with any great reason deny this request; the captain was inducted into the bar, and Miss Crump, who always came down late for dinner, was even more astonished than her mamma on beholding the occupier of the fourth place at the table. Had she expected to see the fascinating stranger so soon again? I think she had. Her big eyes said as much, as, furtively looking up at Mr. Walker's face, they caught his looks; and then bouncing down again towards her plate, pretended to be very busy in looking at the boiled beef and carrots there displayed. She blushed far redder than those carrots, but her shining ringlets hid her confusion together with her lovely face.

Sweet Morgiana! the billiard-ball eyes had a tremendous effect on the captain. They fell plump, as it were, into the pocket of his heart; and he gallantly proposed to treat the company to a bottle of champagne, which was accepted without much difficulty.

Mr. Crump, under pretence of going to the cellar (where he said he had some cases of the finest champagne in Europe), called Dick, the boy, to him, and dispatched him with all speed to a

wine-merchant's, where a couple of bottles of the liquor were procured.

"Bring up two bottles, Mr. C.," Captain Walker gallantly said when Crump made his move, as it were, to the cellar; and it may be imagined after the two bottles were drunk (of which Mrs. Crump took at least nine glasses to her share), how happy, merry, and confidential the whole party had become. Crump told his story of the Bootjack, and whose boot it had drawn; the former Miss Delancy expatiated on her past theatrical life, and the pictures hanging round the room. Miss was equally communicative! and, in short, the captain had all the secrets of the little family in his possession ere sunset. He knew that Miss cared little for either of her suitors, about whom mamma and papa had a little quarrel. He heard Mrs. Crump talk of Morgiana's property, and fell more in love with her than ever. Then came tea, the luscious crumpet, the quiet game at cribbage, and the songthe song which poor Eglantine heard, and which caused Woolsey's rage and his despair.

At the close of the evening the tailor was in a greater rage, and the perfumer in greater despair than ever. He had made his little present of eau de Cologne. "Oh fie!" says the captain, with a hoarse laugh, “it smells of the shop!" He taunted the tailor about his wig, and the honest fellow had only an oath to give by way of repartee. He told his stories about his club and his lordly friends. What chance had either against the all-accomplished Howard Walker?

Old Crump, with a good innate sense of right and wrong, hated the man; Mrs. Crump did not feel quite at her ease regarding him, but Morgiana thought him the most delightful person the world ever produced.

Eglantine's usual morning costume was a blue satin neck-cloth embroidered with butterflies and ornamented with a brandy-ball brooch, a light shawl waistcoat, and a rhubarb-coloured coat of the sort which, I believe, are called Taglionis, and which have no waist-buttons, and make a pretence, as it were, to have no waists, but are in reality adopted by the fat in order to give them a waist. Nothing easier for an obese man than to have a waist; he has but to pinch his middle part a little and the very fat on either side