e sneezed at, strike me pink!
Besides I ain't drawed to po'try--it ain't gentleman-like, I call it
damned low, gentlemen, eh?"

"Low?" repeated the solemn Josh musingly, "why no, it's hardly that,
sir, there's verse, ye see, and there's poetry and t'other's very
different from which--O very."

"And what's the diff, my flower?"

"Why, there's poetry, William, and there's verse, now verse is low I
grant you, 'od sir, verse is as low as low, but poetry is one o' the
harts, O poetry's very sooperior, a gentleman may be permitted to write
poetry when so moody and I shan't quarrel with him, but--writing it
for--money! Then 'tis mere verse, sir, and won't do not by no means.
Verse is all right in its place, Grub Street or a attic, say, but in
the gilded halls of nobility--forbid it, heaven--it won't do, sir, it
ain't the thing, sir--away with it!"

"Ah, but we ain't in the gilded halls, we're in the country, sir, and
the country's enough to drive a man to anything--even poetry, Josh, my
tulip! Nothing to see but grass and dung hills, hedges and
haystacks--O damme!"

"And a occasional dairymaid!" added Horace, laying a finger to his long
nose, "Don't forget the dear, simple, rural creeters!" At this ensued
much loud laughter and stamping of feet with shouts of: "A health,
Horace is right! A toast to the rural beauties!"

Hereupon the Sergeant lowered the crumpled news-sheet and his scowl
grew blacker than ever.

"Dairymaids?" exclaimed the languid William, turning the wineglass on
his stubby finger, "Dairymaids--faugh, gentlemen! Joe and me and
Charles does fly at higher game, we do, I vow. We've discovered a
rustic Vanus! Rabbit me--a peach! A blooming plum--round and
ripe--aha! A parfect goddess! Let me parish if London could boast a
finer! Such a shape! Such a neck! Such dem'd, see-doocing, roguish
eyes, egad!"

"Name--name!" they roared in chorus, "Spit out her name, William!"

"Her name, sirs, begins with a A and ends with another on 'em." Here
the Sergeant sat up suddenly and laid aside: the crumpled news-sheet.
"Begins with a A, sirs," repeated William, still busy with his
wineglass, "and ends with a A and it ain't Anna. And--aha, such a
waist, such pretty wicked little feet, such----"

"Name!" chorused the others, "Name!"

But, at this juncture the door opened and a man entered rather hastily:
his dress was sedate, his air was sedate, indeed he seemed sedateness
personified, though the Serg