huge lover put butter
and ale into the frying-pan. "Why, Sarah Jane," she said, "I declare
he's quite a man cook. How useful he would be about a house!"

"Oh, uncommon," said Sarah Jane. "And you mean to try before long,
don't you, Mr. Brisket?"

"You must ask Maryanne about that," said he, raising his great red
face from the fire, and putting on the airs and graces of a thriving
lover.

"Don't ask me anything," said Maryanne, "for I won't answer anything.
It's nothing to me what he means to try."

"Oh, ain't it, though," said Brisket. And then they all sat down
to supper. It may be imagined with what ease Robinson listened to
conversation such as this, and with what appetite he took his seat at
that table.

"Mr. Robinson, may I give you a little of this cheese?" said
Maryanne. What a story such a question told of the heartlessness,
audacity, and iron nerves of her who asked it! What power, and at
the same time what cruelty, there must have been within that laced
bodice, when she could bring herself to make such an offer!

"By all means," said Robinson, with equal courage. The morsel was
then put upon his plate, and he swallowed it. "I would he had
poisoned it," said he to himself. "With what delight would I then
partake of the dish, so that he and she partook of it with me!"

The misery of that supper-party will never be forgotten. Had Brisket
been Adonis himself, he could not have been treated with softer
courtesies by those two harpies; and yet, not an hour ago, Sarah
Jane Jones had been endeavouring to raise a conspiracy against his
hopes. What an ass will a man allow himself to become under such
circumstances! There sat the big butcher, smirking and smiling,
ever and again dipping his unlovely lips into a steaming beaker of
brandy-and-water, regarding himself as triumphant in the courts of
Venus. But that false woman who sat at his side would have sold him
piecemeal for money, as he would have sold the carcase of a sheep.

"You do not drink, George," said Mr. Brown.

"It does not need," said Robinson; and then he took his hat and went
his way.

On that night he swore to himself that he would abandon her for ever,
and devote himself to commerce and the Muses. It was then that he
composed the opening lines of a poem which may yet make his name
famous wherever the English language is spoken:--

The golden-eyed son of the Morning rushed down the wind
like a trumpet,
His azure locks adornin