see it!" says Abednego, whose father was a mock-jewel and gold-
lace merchant in Hanway Yard; and I promised that he should have a sight
of it as soon as it was set. As my pocket-money was run out too (by
coach-hire to and from home, five shillings to our maid at home, ten to
my aunt's maid and man, five-and-twenty shillings lost at whist, as I
said, and fifteen-and-six paid for a silver scissors for the dear little
fingers of Somebody), Roundhand, who was very good-natured, asked me to
dine, and advanced me 7_l_. 1_s_. 8_d_., a month's salary. It was at
Roundhand's house, Myddelton Square, Pentonville, over a fillet of veal
and bacon and a glass of port, that I learned and saw how his wife ill-
treated him; as I have told before. Poor fellow!--we under-clerks all
thought it was a fine thing to sit at a desk by oneself, and have 50_l_.
per month, as Roundhand had; but I've a notion that Hoskins and I,
blowing duets on the flute together in our second floor in Salisbury
Square, were a great deal more at ease than our head--and more _in
harmony_, too; though we made sad work of the music, certainly.

One day Gus Hoskins and I asked leave from Roundhand to be off at three
o'clock, as we had _particular business_ at the West End. He knew it was
about the great Hoggarty diamond, and gave us permission; so off we set.
When we reached St. Martin's Lane, Gus got a cigar, to give himself as it
were a _distingue_ air, and pulled at it all the way up the Lane, and
through the alleys into Coventry Street, where Mr. Polonius's shop is, as
everybody knows.

The door was open, and a number of carriages full of ladies were drawing
up and setting down. Gus kept his hands in his pockets--trousers were
worn very full then, with large tucks, and pigeon-holes for your boots,
or Bluchers, to come through (the fashionables wore boots, but we chaps
in the City, on 80_l_. a year, contented ourselves with Bluchers); and as
Gus stretched out his pantaloons as wide as he could from his hips, and
kept blowing away at his cheroot, and clamping with the iron heels of his
boots, and had very large whiskers for so young a man, he really looked
quite the genteel thing, and was taken by everybody to be a person of
consideration.

He would not come into the shop though, but stood staring at the gold
pots and kettles in the window outside. I went in; and after a little
hemming and hawing--for I had never been at such a fashionable place
before--as