and read it all through very careful, and I could see her nose
going up gradual, and her colour coming, and then she sez to me, 'You
may go now, boy; there's no answer.' And I sez to her, 'If you please,
miss, master said as I was not to go away without a answer.' So she sez,
uncommon short and stiff, 'In that case he shall have it!'--like that,
she says, as proud as a queen, and she scribbles a line or two on it,
and throws it to me, and goes on casting up figgers."

"A line or two! where?" cried Leander, and caught up the letter again.
Yes, there on the last page was Matilda's delicate commercial
handwriting, and the poor man read the cruel words, "_I have nothing to
advise; I give you up to your 'goddess'!_"

"Very well, William," he said, with a deadly calm; "that's all. You
young devil! what are you a-sniggering at?" he added, with a sudden
outburst.

"On'y something I 'eard a boy say in the street, sir, going along, sir;
nothing to do with you, sir."

"Oh, youth, youth!" muttered the poor broken man; "boys don't grow
feelings, any more than they grow whiskers!"

And he went back to his saloon, where he was instantly hailed with
reproaches from the abandoned customer.

"Look here, sir! what do you mean by this? I told you I wanted to be
shaved, and you've soaped the top of my head and left it to cool!
What"--and he made use of expletives here--"what are you about?"

Leander apologized on the ground of business of a pressing nature, but
the customer was not pacified.

"Business, sir! your business is _here_: _I'm_ your business! And I come
to be shaved, and you soap the top of my head, and leave me all alone to
dry! It's scandalous! it's----"

"Look here, sir," interrupted Leander, gloomily; "I've a good deal of
private trouble to put up with just now, without having _you_ going on
at me; so I must ask you not to 'arris me like this, or I don't know
what I might do, with a razor so 'andy!"

"That'll do!" said the customer, hastily. "I--I don't care about being
shaved this morning. Wipe my head, and let me go; no, I'll wipe it
myself,--don't you trouble!" and he made for the door. "It's my belief,"
he said, pausing on the threshold for an instant, "that you're a
dangerous lunatic, sir; you ought to be shut up!"

"I dessay I shall have a mad doctor down on me after this," thought
Leander; "but I shan't wait for _him_. No, it is all over now; the die
is fixed! Cruel Tillie! you have spoke the mandrake; you