would Captain Night say?"

"Captain Night be hanged!"

"He will be hanged, as our brother Surly has it, in good time, I doubt
it not. Meanwhile, order must be kept at the Stag o' Tyne. Get you and
draw the dram I promised you; and, Mother, wash me this little lad's
face and hands, that he may sit down to meat with us in a seemly
manner."

"Who the Clink is he?" asked Mother Drum, eyeing me with no very Great
Favour.

"He says he is little Boy Jack," answered Mr. Jowler, gravely. "We will
give him another name before we have done with him. Meantime he has a
guinea in his pocket to pay his shot, and that's enough for the fat old
Alewife of the Stag o' Tyne."

"Fat again!" muttered Mother Drum. "Is it a 'Sizes matter to be full of
flesh? I be fat indeed," she answered, with a sigh, "and must have a
chair let out o' the sides for me, that these poor old hips may have
play. And I, that was of so buxom a figure."

"Never mind your Figure, Mother," remarked my Conductor, "but do my
bidding. I'll e'en go and peel too;" and without more ado he leaves us.

Madam Drum went into her kitchen and fetched forth a Tin Bowl full of
hot suds, and with these she washed me as she had been directed. I bore
it all unresistingly--likewise a scrubbing with a rough towel. Then,
when my hair was kempt with an old Felting comb, almost toothless, I
felt refreshed and hungrier than ever. But Mother Drum never ceased to
complain of having been called fat.

"Time was, my smooth-faced Coney," she said, "that I was as lithe and
limber as you are, and was called Jaunty Peg. And now poor old Moll
cooks collops for those that are born to dance jigs in chains for the
north-east wind to play the fiddle to. Time was when a whole army
followed me, when I beat the drum before the great Duke."

"What Duke?" I asked, looking up at her great red face.

"What Duke, milksop! Why, who should I mean but the Duke that won
Hochstedt and Ramilies:--the Ace of Trumps, my dear, that saved the
Queen of Hearts, the good Queen Anne, so bravely. What Duke should I
mean but John o' Marlborough."

"I have seen _him_," I said, with childish gravity.

"Seen him! when and where, loblolly-boy? You're too young to have been a
drummer."

"I saw him," I answered, blushing and stammering; "I saw him when--when
I was a little Gentleman."

"Lord save us!" cries Mother Drum, bursting into a jolly laugh. "A
Gentleman! since when, your Lordship, I pray? But we're all Gent