what has happened, you would have refused to let me come into your house!"

"Ah, ha! — that 's rather an odd idea, too!" said Tagrag, with good-humored jocularity. "If I felt a true friendship for you as plain Titmouse, it's so likely I should have cut you just when - ahem! My dear sir! It was I that thought you would n't have come into my house! A likely thing, indeed!"

Titmouse was puzzled. His perceptions, never very quick or clear, were now undoubtedly somewhat obfuscated with what he had been drinking. In short, he did not understand that Tag-rag had not understood him; and felt rather baffled.

"What surprising ups and downs there are in life, Mr. Titmouse!" said Mrs. Tag-rag, respectfully-"they're all sent from above, you may depend upon it, to try us! No one knows how they 'd behave, if as how (in a manner) they were turned upside down."

“I—I hope, mem, I haven't done anything to show that I"

"Oh! my dear Titmouse," anxiously interrupted Tagrag, inwardly cursing his wife, who, finding she always went wrong in her husband's eyes whenever she spoke a word, determined for the future to stick to her negus "The fact is, there's a Mr. Horror here that's for sending all decent people to He's filled my wife there with all sorts of

nay, if she is n't bursting with cant You done anything wrong! I

so never mind her!

will say this for you - you always was a pattern of modesty and propriety · your hand, my dear Titmouse!" “Well — I'm a happy man again," resumed Titmouse, resolved now to go on with his adventure. "And when did they tell you of it, sir?"

"Oh, a few days ago—a week ago," replied Tag-rag, trying to recollect.

"Why-why-sir-a'n't you mistaken?" inquired Titmouse, with a depressed, but at the same time a surprised air. "It only happened this morning, after you left"

"Eh? - eh ?—ah, ha! - What do you mean, Mr. Titmouse?” interrupted Tag-rag, with a faint attempt at a smile. Mrs. Tag-rag and Miss Tag-rag also turned exceedingly startled faces towards Titmouse, who felt as if a house were going to fall down on him.

66

Why, sir," he began to cry, (an attempt which was greatly aided by the maudlin condition to which drink had reduced him,) "till to-day, I thought I was heir to ten thousand a-year, and it seems I'm not; it's all a mistake of those cursed people at Saffron Hill!"

Tag-rag's face changed visibly, and showed the desperate shock he had just sustained. His inward agony was forcing out on his slanting forehead a dew of perspiration. a-capital-joke - - Mr. - Titmouse-ah,

"What

-

ha!" he gasped, hastily passing his handkerchief over his forehead. Titmouse, though greatly alarmed, stood to his gun pretty steadily.

"I-I wish it was a joke! It's been no joke to me, There's another Tittlebat Titmouse, it seems, in Shoreditch, that's the right"

sir.

"Who told you this, sir? Pho, I don't—I can't believe it," said Tag-rag, in a voice tremulous between suppressed rage and fear.

"Too true, though, 'pon my life! It is, so help me

-!" in the most earnest and solemn manner.

"How dare you swear before ladies, sir? You're insulting them, sir!" cried Tag-rag, trembling with rage. "And in my presence, too, sir? You're not a gentleman!" He suddenly dropped his voice, and in a trembling and almost beseeching manner, asked Titmouse whether he was really joking or serious.

"Never more serious in my life, sir; and enough to make me so, sir!" replied Titmouse, in a lamentable

manner.

"You really mean, then, to tell me it's all a mistake, then and that you're no more than what you always were?" inquired Tag-rag, with a desperate attempt to speak calmly.

"Oh yes, sir! Yes!" cried Titmouse, mournfully; "and if you'll only be so kind as to let me serve you as I used I'll serve you faithfully! You know it was no fault of mine, sir! They would tell me it was so ! "

'Tis impossible to conceive a more disgusting expression than the repulsive features of Tag-rag wore at that moment, while he gazed in ominous and agitated silence at Titmouse. His lips quivered, and he seemed incapable of speaking.

“Oh, ma, I do feel so ill!" faintly exclaimed Miss Tagrag, turning deadly pale. Titmouse was on the verge of dropping on his knees and confessing the trick, greatly agitated at the effect unexpectedly produced on Miss Tagrag; when Tag-rag's heavy hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder, and he whispered in a fierce undertone "You're an impostor, sir!" which arrested Titmouse, and made something like a MAN of him. He was a fearful fool, but he did not want for mere pluck; and now it was roused. Mrs. Tag-rag exclaimed, "Oh, you shocking scamp!" as she passed Titmouse, with much agitation, and led her daughter out of the room.

"Then an impostor, sir, a'n't fit company for you, of course, sir!" said Titmouse, rising, and trembling with mingled apprehension and anger.

"Pay me my five-pound note!" almost shouted Tagrag, furiously tightening the grasp by which he held Titmouse's collar.

"Well, sir, and I will, if you'll only take your hand off!

Hollo, sir - What the de Leave go, sir! Hands off! Are you going to murder me? I'll pay you, and done with you, sir," stammered Titmouse: - when a faint scream was heard, plainly from Miss Tag-rag, overhead, and in hysterics. Then the seething caldron boiled over. "You infernal scoundrel!" exclaimed Tag-rag, almost choked with fury; and suddenly seizing Titmouse by the collar, scarce giving him time, in passing, to get hold of his hat and stick, he urged him along through the pas sage, down the gravel walk, threw open the gate, thrust him furiously through it, and sent after him such a blast of execration, as was almost strong enough to drive him a hundred yards down the road! Titmouse did not fully recover his breath or his senses for a long while afterwards. When he did, the first thing he experienced, was a dreadful disposition towards sickness; but gradually overcoming it, he felt an inclination to fall down on his knees in the open road, and worship the sagacious and admirable GAMMON, who had so exactly predicted what had come to pass!

And now, Mr. Titmouse, for some little time I have done with you. Away! - give room to your betters. But don't think that I have yet "rifled all your sweetness," or am yet about to "fling you like a noisome weed away."

CHAPTER VII.

WHILE the lofty door of a house in Grosvenor Street was yet quivering under the shock of a previously announced dinner-arrival, one of the two servants standing behind a carriage which approached from the direction of Piccadilly, slipped off, and in a twinkling, with a thun-thunthunder-under-under, thunder-runder-runder, thun-thunthun! and a shrill thrilling Whir-r-r of the bell, announced the arrival of the Duke of -, the last guest. It was a large and plain carriage, but perfectly well known; and before the door of the house at which it had drawn up had been opened, displaying some four or five servants standing in the hall, in simple but elegant liveries, some half-dozen passengers had stopped to see get out of the carriage an elderly, middle-sized man, with a somewhat spare figure, dressed in plain black clothes, with iron-gray hair, and a countenance which, once seen, was not to be forgotten. That was a great man; one, the like of whom many previous centuries had not seen; whose name shot terror into the hearts of all the enemies of old England all over the world, and fond pride and admiration into the hearts of his fellow-countrymen.

"A quarter to eleven!" he said, in a quiet tone, to the servant who was holding open the carriage door — while the bystanders took off their hats; a courtesy which he acknowledged, as he slowly stepped across the pavement, by touching his hat in a mechanical sort of way with his forefinger. The house-door then closed upon him; the handful of onlookers passed away; off rolled the empty