their meeting and fusing into one of the usual size. A dingy
handkerchief twisted like a cord about his neck, left its great veins
exposed to view, and they were swollen and starting, as though with
gulping down strong passions, malice, and ill-will. His dress was of
threadbare velveteen--a faded, rusty, whitened black, like the ashes
of a pipe or a coal fire after a day's extinction; discoloured with the
soils of many a stale debauch, and reeking yet with pot-house odours. In
lieu of buckles at his knees, he wore unequal loops of packthread; and
in his grimy hands he held a knotted stick, the knob of which was carved
into a rough likeness of his own vile face. Such was the visitor who
doffed his three-cornered hat in Gashford's presence, and waited,
leering, for his notice.

'Ah! Dennis!' cried the secretary. 'Sit down.'

'I see my lord down yonder--' cried the man, with a jerk of his thumb
towards the quarter that he spoke of, 'and he says to me, says my lord,
"If you've nothing to do, Dennis, go up to my house and talk with Muster
Gashford." Of course I'd nothing to do, you know. These an't my working
hours. Ha ha! I was a-taking the air when I see my lord, that's what
I was doing. I takes the air by night, as the howls does, Muster
Gashford.'

And sometimes in the day-time, eh?' said the secretary--'when you go out
in state, you know.'

'Ha ha!' roared the fellow, smiting his leg; 'for a gentleman as 'ull
say a pleasant thing in a pleasant way, give me Muster Gashford agin'
all London and Westminster! My lord an't a bad 'un at that, but he's a
fool to you. Ah to be sure,--when I go out in state.'

'And have your carriage,' said the secretary; 'and your chaplain, eh?
and all the rest of it?'

'You'll be the death of me,' cried Dennis, with another roar, 'you will.
But what's in the wind now, Muster Gashford,' he asked hoarsely, 'Eh?
Are we to be under orders to pull down one of them Popish chapels--or
what?'

'Hush!' said the secretary, suffering the faintest smile to play upon
his face. 'Hush! God bless me, Dennis! We associate, you know, for
strictly peaceable and lawful purposes.'

'I know, bless you,' returned the man, thrusting his tongue into his
cheek; 'I entered a' purpose, didn't I!'

'No doubt,' said Gashford, smiling as before. And when he said so,
Dennis roared again, and smote his leg still harder, and falling into
fits of laughter, wiped his eyes with the corner of his neckerchief, and
crie