eard Abel in old days speak of
Gabriel Bennet as a spooney--a saint in the milk--a goodsey, boodsey,
booby--a sort of youth who would turn pale and be snuffed out by one
of her glances. She found him incomprehensible. She owed him the first
positive emotion of human interest she had known for years.

May Newt looked and listened without speaking. The soft light glimmered
in her eyes, for she knew what it all meant. It meant precisely what her
praises of Little Malacca meant. It meant that she and Gabriel loved each
other.

The junior partner was still holding the book when a heavy step was heard
in the entry. Fanny's eyes grew darker and the frown deeper. There was a
blundering movement outside--a hat fell--a cane struck something--and
Gabriel knew as perfectly as if he could look through the wall what kind
of man was coming. The door opened with a burst, and Mr. Alfred Dinks
stopped as his eye fell upon the company. A heavy, coarse, red-faced,
dull-eyed man, with an air of brutish obstinacy in every lineament and
movement, he stared for a moment without a word or sign of welcome, and
then looking at his wife, said, in a grunting, surly tone,

"Look here; don't be fooling round. The old man's bust up!"

He banged the door violently to, and they heard his clumsy footsteps
creaking up the stairs.

CHAPTER LX.

POLITICS.

"In course; I sez to ma--why, Lord bless me, it must have been three or
four years ago--that 'twould all turn out so. What's rotten will come to
pieces, ma, sez I. Every year she sez to me, sez she, why ain't the Newts
failed yet? as you said they was going to. Jest you be quiet, sez I, ma,
it's comin'. So 'twas. I know'd all about it."

President Van Boozenberg thus unburdened his mind and justified his
vaticinations to the knot of gentlemen who were perpetually at the bank.
They listened, and said ah! and yes, and shook their heads; and the shaky
ones wondered whether the astute financier had marked them and had said
to ma, sez he, that for all they looked so bright and crowded canvas
so smartly, they are shaky, ma--shaky.

General Belch heard the news at his office. He was sitting on the end
of his back-bone, which was supported on the two hind legs of a wooden
chair, while the two fore legs and his own were lifted in the air. His
own, however, went up at a more precipitate angle and rested with the
feet apart upon the mantle. By a skillful muscular process the General
ejected tobacc