replies Billy, who appears to be in some
difficulty just now with his mother tongue.

"You mustn't stand on your head in the office, you know," says the young
lady, with a mischievous smile, "or the junior partner would be
horrified."

The young lady's brother smiles, as if this observation referred to him,
and the elderly lady looks particularly proud, for some reason or other.

"That there bloke--" begins the boy.

"Order, sir," exclaims the young lady; "haven't I told you, Billy, that
`bloke' is not a nice word? It's all very well for a shoeblack, but it
won't do for an office-boy."

"You do jaw me--" again began the boy.

"I what you?"

"Jaw--leastways you tork, you do," said Billy, who appeared to be as
much in awe of the young lady as he was hopeless of attaining the
classical English.

"I say, Mary," laughed the brother, "you might give Billy a holiday to-
day, as it's Christmas Day. You can't expect him to master the Queen's
English all at once."

So Billy is allowed to express himself for the rest of the evening in
the way most natural to him, and shows his gratitude by making ample use
of his liberty.

Presently the elder lady disappears, and returns in a minute or two with
the information that dinner is ready, an announcement which Billy greets
with the laconic ejaculation, "Proper!"

It is a cheery Christmas dinner that. The elderly gentleman is rather
quiet, and so is the young gentleman called Fred, who looks a great deal
oftener at the young lady than he does at the plate before him. But the
others make up in fun and chatter for the silence of these two, and as
the meal goes on the good spirits of the party rise all round.

"This is rather better than Drury Lane, eh, Jack?" says Fred.

"Rather," says Jack. "The only fear is about its being too far away for
father."

"Not at all," says the elder gentleman. "I'm better already for the
walk every day. You've no idea how agreeable the streets are at three
o'clock every morning."

"Do you remember our first walk out this way, Fred," says Jack, "when we
tried to find out Flanagan?"

"Yes, I do, indeed. We missed him, but we found Billy instead."

"Yaas, and you was a nice pair of flats, you was, when I fust comed
across you," observes Billy, who, I regret to say, has not quite
finished his mouthful of plum-pudding before he speaks.

"They're pulling down the court, I see, Billy," says Fred.

"They are so. 'Tain't no concern of