name is Emma Ward, and she b'longs to a Miss Tippet, to whom she's
related somehow, but I don't know where she got her, nor who's her
parents. This same Miss Tippet is some sort of a relation o' Mr
Auberly, who sent me to her with a note, and she has sent me with
another note to her brother near London Bridge, who, I s'pose, will send
me with another note to somebody else, so I'm on my way down to see him.
I thought I'd look in to ask after you in passin', and cheer you on to
dooty."

A violent fit of somewhat noisy coughing from one of the men at the
fireplace attracted Willie's attention at this point in the
conversation.

"Wot a noisy feller you are, Corney," remarked one of the men.

"Faix," retorted Corney, "it's noisy you'd be too av ye had the cowld in
yer chist that I have. Sure, if ye had bin out five times in wan night
as I wos on Widsenday last, wid the branch to howld in a smoke as 'ud
choke Baxmore hisself (an' it's well known _he_ can stand a'most
anything), not to spake o' the hose bu'stin' right betune me two feet."

"Come, come, Paddy," said Dale, interrupting; "don't try to choke us,
now; you know very well that one of the fires was only a cut-away
affair; two were chimneys, and one was a false alarm."

"True for ye!" cried Corney, who had a tendency to become irascible in
argument, or while defending himself; "true for ye, Mister Dale, but
they _was_ alarms for all that, false or thrue, was they not now?
Anyhow they alarmed me out o' me bed five times in a night as cowld as
the polar ragions, and the last time was a raale case o' two flats burnt
out, an' four hours' work in iced wather."

There was a general laugh at this point, followed by several coughs and
sneezes, for the men were all more or less afflicted with colds, owing
to the severity of the weather and the frequency of the fires that had
occurred at that time.

"There's some of us can sing chorus to Corney," observed one of the
group. "I never saw such weather; and it seems to me that the worse the
weather the more the fires, as if they got 'em up a purpose to kill us."

"Bill Moxey!" cried another, "you're _always_ givin' out some truism
with a face like Solomon."

"Well, Jack Williams," retorted Moxey, "it's more than I can say of you,
for you never say anything worth listenin' to, and you couldn't look
like Solomon if you was to try ever so much.--You're too stoopid for
that."

"I say, lads," cried Frank Willders, "what d'