toad. Introduce me to your worthy aunt, if you will be so kind, and
I have no doubt that the excellent lady and I will be able to arrange
terms satisfactory to both parties.'

Next evening the girl ushered her aunt into Toad's cell, bearing his
week's washing pinned up in a towel. The old lady had been prepared
beforehand for the interview, and the sight of certain gold sovereigns
that Toad had thoughtfully placed on the table in full view practically
completed the matter and left little further to discuss. In return for
his cash, Toad received a cotton print gown, an apron, a shawl, and a
rusty black bonnet; the only stipulation the old lady made being that
she should be gagged and bound and dumped down in a corner. By this not
very convincing artifice, she explained, aided by picturesque fiction
which she could supply herself, she hoped to retain her situation, in
spite of the suspicious appearance of things.

Toad was delighted with the suggestion. It would enable him to leave the
prison in some style, and with his reputation for being a desperate
and dangerous fellow untarnished; and he readily helped the gaoler's
daughter to make her aunt appear as much as possible the victim of
circumstances over which she had no control.

'Now it's your turn, Toad,' said the girl. 'Take off that coat and
waistcoat of yours; you're fat enough as it is.'

Shaking with laughter, she proceeded to 'hook-and-eye' him into the
cotton print gown, arranged the shawl with a professional fold, and tied
the strings of the rusty bonnet under his chin.

'You're the very image of her,' she giggled, 'only I'm sure you never
looked half so respectable in all your life before. Now, good-bye, Toad,
and good luck. Go straight down the way you came up; and if any one says
anything to you, as they probably will, being but men, you can chaff
back a bit, of course, but remember you're a widow woman, quite alone in
the world, with a character to lose.'

With a quaking heart, but as firm a footstep as he could command,
Toad set forth cautiously on what seemed to be a most hare-brained and
hazardous undertaking; but he was soon agreeably surprised to find how
easy everything was made for him, and a little humbled at the thought
that both his popularity, and the sex that seemed to inspire it, were
really another's. The washerwoman's squat figure in its familiar cotton
print seemed a passport for every barred door and grim gateway; even
when he hesitat