a glass of ale.

'Won't you walk into the parlour, sir?' said the young lady, in seductive
tones.

'You had better walk into the parlour, sir,' said the little old
landlord, throwing his chair back, and looking round one side of the
screen, to survey our appearance.

'You had much better step into the parlour, sir,' said the little old
lady, popping out her head, on the other side of the screen.

We cast a slight glance around, as if to express our ignorance of the
locality so much recommended. The little old landlord observed it;
bustled out of the small door of the small bar; and forthwith ushered us
into the parlour itself.

It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wainscoting, a sanded
floor, and a high mantel-piece. The walls were ornamented with three or
four old coloured prints in black frames, each print representing a naval
engagement, with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each other most
vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in the distance,
and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection of broken masts
and blue legs sticking up out of the water. Depending from the ceiling
in the centre of the room, were a gas-light and bell-pull; on each side
were three or four long narrow tables, behind which was a thickly-planted
row of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs, peculiar to
hostelries of this description. The monotonous appearance of the sanded
boards was relieved by an occasional spittoon; and a triangular pile of
those useful articles adorned the two upper corners of the apartment.

At the furthest table, nearest the fire, with his face towards the door
at the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish man of about forty, whose
short, stiff, black hair curled closely round a broad high forehead, and
a face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated a
rather inflamed appearance. He was smoking a cigar, with his eyes fixed
on the ceiling, and had that confident oracular air which marked him as
the leading politician, general authority, and universal
anecdote-relater, of the place. He had evidently just delivered himself
of something very weighty; for the remainder of the company were puffing
at their respective pipes and cigars in a kind of solemn abstraction, as
if quite overwhelmed with the magnitude of the subject recently under
discussion.

On his right hand sat an elderly gentleman with a white head, and
broad-brimmed brown hat; on hi