s hot eyes. "I fancy it will do my
business!"

And it did.

THE LAST STRAW

XIII.

"Thou in justice,
If from the height of majesty we can
Look down upon thy lowness and embrace it,
Art bound with fervour to look up to me."

MASSINGER, _Roman Actor._

Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business that
morning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to have
his luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penal
bullet-headedness before he could protest, and another sacrificed his
whiskers and part of one ear to the hairdresser's uninspired scissors.
For Leander's eyes were constantly turning to the front part of his
shop, where his apprentice might come in at any moment with the answer
to his appeal.

At last the moment came when the bell fixed at the door sounded sharply,
and he saw the sleek head and chubby red face he had been so anxiously
expecting. He was busy with a customer; but that could not detain him
then, and he rushed quickly into the outer shop. "Well, William," he
said, breathlessly, "a nice time you've been over that message! I gave
you the money for your 'bus."

"Yusser, but it was this way: you said a green 'bus, and I took a green
'bus with 'Bayswater' on it, and I didn't know nothing was wrong, and
when it stopped I sez to the conductor, 'This ain't Kensington
Gardings;' and he sez, 'No, it's Archer Street;' and I sez----"

"Never mind that now; you got to the shop, didn't you?"

"Yes, I got to the shop, sir, and I see the lady; but I sez to that
conductor, 'You should ha' told me,' I sez----"

"Did she give you anything for me?" interrupted Leander, impatiently.

"Yessur," said the boy.

"Then where the dooce is it?"

"'Ere!" said William, and brought out an envelope, which his master tore
open with joy. It contained his own letter!

"William," he said unsteadily, "is this all?"

"Ain't it enough, sir?" said the young scoundrel, who had guessed the
state of affairs, and felt an impish satisfaction at his employer's
rejection.

"None of that, William; d'ye hear me?" said Leander. "William, I ain't
been a bad master to you. Tell me, how did she take it?"

"Well, she didn't seem to want to take it nohow at first," said the boy.
"I went up to the desk where she was a-sittin' and gave it her, and
by-and-by she opened it with the tips of her fingers, as if it would
bite,