where those who wished for privacy and additional comfort might
be entertained on terms somewhat more expensive. We accordingly beg our
readers to accompany us up a creaking pair of stairs to a small backroom
on the first floor, furnished with an old, round oak table, with turned
legs, four or five old-fashioned chairs, a few wood-cuts, daubed with
green and yellow, representing the four seasons, a Christmas carol,
together with that miracle of ingenuity, a reed in a bottle, which stood
on the chimney-piece.

In this room, with liquor before them, which was procured from a
neighboring public house--for, in establishments of this kind, they are
not permitted to keep liquor for sale--sat three persons, two men and a
woman. One of the men seemed, at first glance, rather good-looking, was
near or about fifty, stout, big-boned, and apparently very powerful as
regarded personal strength. He was respectably enough dressed, and,
as we said, unless when it happened that he fell into a mood of
thoughtfulness, which he did repeatedly, had an appearance of frankness
and simplicity which at once secured instant and unhesitating good will.
When, however, after putting the tumbler to his lips, and gulping down a
portion of it, and then replacing the liquor on the table, he folded his
arms and knitted his brows, in an instant the expression of openness and
good humor changed into one of deep and deadly malignity.

The features of the elder person exhibited a comic contrast between
nature and habit--between an expression of good humor, broad and
legible, which no one could mistake for a moment, and an affectation
of consequence, self-importance, and mock heroic dignity that were
irresistible. He was a pedagogue.

The woman who accompanied them we need not describe, having already
made the reader acquainted with her in the person of the female
fortune-teller, who held the mysterious dialogue with Sir Thomas Gourlay
on his way to Lord Cullamore's.

"This liquor," said the schoolmaster, "would be nothing the worse of
a little daicent mellowness and flavor; but, at the same time, we must
admit that, though sadly deficient in a spirit of exhilaration, it bears
a harmonious reference to the beautiful beef and cabbage which we got
for dinner. The whole of them are what I designate as sorry specimens of
metropolitan luxury. May I never translate a classic, but I fear I
shall soon wax aegrotat--I feel something like a telegraphic despatch
c