untenance.

"'Tain't a bad 'un, but 'tain't 'arf as prime as _The Pirate's Bride_.
The bloke there pisons two on 'em with prussic acid, and wouldn't ever
'ave got nabbed if he 'adn't took some hisself by mistake, the flat!"

Reginald could hardly help smiling at this appetising _resume_.

"I want something to eat," he said. "Is there any place near here where
I can get it?"

"Trum's, but 'is sosseges is off at three o'clock. Better try
Cupper's--he's a good 'un for bloaters; _I_ deals with 'im."

Reginald felt neither the spirit nor the inclination to make a personal
examination into the merits of the rival caterers.

"You'd better go and get me something," he said to the boy; "coffee and
fish or cold meat will do."

"No fear; I ain't a-goin' for nothing," replied the boy. "I'll do your
errands for a tanner a week and your leavings, but not no less."

"You shall have it," said Reginald. Whereupon the boy undertook the
commission and departed.

The meal was a dismal one. The herrings were badly over-smoked and the
coffee was like mud, and the boy's conversation, which filled in a
running accompaniment, was not conducive to digestion.

"I'd 'most a mind to try some prussic in that corfee," said that
bloodthirsty young gentleman, "if I'd a known where the chemist
downstairs keeps his'n. Then they'd 'a said you'd poisoned yourself
'cos you was blue coming to this 'ere 'ole. I'd 'a been put in the box
at the inquige, and I'd 'a said Yes, you was blue, and I thought there
was a screw loose the minit I see yer, and I'd seen yer empty a paper of
powder in your corfee while you thort nobody wasn't a-looking. And the
jury'd say it was tempory 'sanity and sooiside, and say they considers I
was a honest young feller, and vote me a bob out of the poor-box. There
you are. What do you think of that?"

"I suppose that's what the man in _The Pirate's Bride_ ought to have
done," said Reginald, with a faint smile.

"To be sure he ought. Why, it's enough to disgust any one with the
flat, when he goes and takes the prussic hisself. Of course he'd get
found out."

"Well, it's just as well you've not put any in my coffee," said
Reginald. "It's none too nice as it is. And I'd advise you, young
fellow, to burn all those precious story-books of yours, if that's the
sort of stuff they put into your head."

The boy stared at him in horrified amazement.

"Burn 'em! Oh, Walker!"

"What's your name?" demanded Regina