ove you'd understand the
harm. Every time he has pressed your lips I have heard it, though I
was in King's Head Court all the time."

"That must be a crammer, Daniel."

"I did;--not with the ears of my head, but with the fibres of my
breast."

"Oh;--ah. But, Daniel, you and Sam used to be such friends at the
first go off."

"Go off of what?"

"When he first took to coming after me. You remember the tea-party,
when Marion Fay was here."

"I tried it on just then;--I did. I thought that, maybe, I might come
not to care about it so much."

"I'm sure you acted it very well."

"And I thought that perhaps it might be the best way of touching that
cold heart of yours."

"Cold! I don't know as my heart is colder than anybody else's heart."

"Would that you would make it warm once more for me."

"Poor Sam!" said Clara, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes.

"Why is he any poorer than me? I was first. At any rate I was before
him."

"I don't know anything about firsts or lasts," said Clara, as the
ghosts of various Banquos flitted before her eyes.

"And as for him, what right has he to think of any girl? He's a poor
mean creature, without the means of getting so much as a bed for a
wife to lie on. He used to talk so proud of Her Majesty's Civil
Service. Her Majesty's Civil Service has sent him away packing."

"Not yet, Daniel."

"They have. I've made it my business to find out, and Sir Boreas
Bodkin has written the order to-day. 'Dismissal--B. B.' I know those
who have seen the very words written in the punishment book of the
Post Office."

"Poor Sam!"

"Destroying papers of the utmost importance about Her Majesty's Mail
Service! What else was he to expect? And now he's penniless."

"A hundred and twenty isn't so very much, Daniel."

"Mr. Fay was saying only the other day that if I was married and
settled they'd make it better for me."

"You're too fond of The Duchess, Daniel."

"No, Clara--no; I deny that. You ask Mrs. Grimley why it is I come to
The Duchess so often. It isn't for anything that I take there."

"Oh; I didn't know. Young men when they frequent those places
generally do take something."

"If I had a little home of my own with the girl I love on the other
side of the fireplace, and perhaps a baby in her arms--" Tribbledale
as he said this looked at her with all his eyes.

"Laws, Daniel; what things you do say!"

"I should never go then to any Duchess, or any Marquess of Granby,