ings, with a great oath, starting
up out of all patience.

"Fellow!" said his Excellency, quite aghast, "do you know to whom you
speak?--to a nobleman of seventy-eight descents; a count of the Holy
Roman Empire; a representative of a sovereign? Ha, egad! Don't stamp,
fellow, if you hope for my protection."

"D--n your protection!" said Mr. Billings, in a fury. "Curse you and
your protection too! I'm a free-born Briton, and no ---- French Papist!
And any man who insults my mother--ay, or calls me feller--had better
look to himself and the two eyes in his head, I can tell him!" And with
this Mr. Billings put himself into the most approved attitude of the
Cockpit, and invited his father, the reverend gentleman, and Monsieur
la Rose the valet, to engage with him in a pugilistic encounter. The two
latter, the Abbe especially, seemed dreadfully frightened; but the Count
now looked on with much interest; and, giving utterance to a feeble kind
of chuckle, which lasted for about half a minute, said,--

"Paws off, Pompey! You young hangdog, you--egad, yes, aha! 'pon honour,
you're a lad of spirit; some of your father's spunk in you, hey? I know
him by that oath. Why, sir, when I was sixteen, I used to swear--to
swear, egad, like a Thames waterman, and exactly in this fellow's way!
Buss me, my lad; no, kiss my hand. That will do"--and he held out a very
lean yellow hand, peering from a pair of yellow ruffles. It shook very
much, and the shaking made all the rings upon it shine only the more.

"Well," says Mr. Billings, "if you wasn't a-going to abuse me nor
mother, I don't care if I shake hands with you. I ain't proud!"

The Abbe laughed with great glee; and that very evening sent off to his
Court a most ludicrous spicy description of the whole scene of meeting
between this amiable father and child; in which he said that young
Billings was the eleve favori of M. Kitch, Ecuyer, le bourreau de
Londres, and which made the Duke's mistress laugh so much that she vowed
that the Abbe should have a bishopric on his return: for, with such
store of wisdom, look you, my son, was the world governed in those days.

The Count and his offspring meanwhile conversed with some cordiality.
The former informed the latter of all the diseases to which he
was subject, his manner of curing them, his great consideration as
chamberlain to the Duke of Bavaria; how he wore his Court suits, and of
a particular powder which he had invented for the hair; h