s he had
predicted his own ruin about two hours before; and went away to Kirk
Street, to see that his friend Mat was at home to receive Valentine that
evening, stepping along as nimbly and swinging his stick as cheerfully,
as if he had already vindicated himself to his father by winning every
prize medal that the Royal Academy could bestow.

Seven o'clock had been fixed as the hour at which Mr. Blyth was to
present himself at the lodgings in Kirk Street. He arrived punctual to
the appointed time, dressed jauntily for the occasion in a short blue
frock coat, famous among all his acquaintances for its smartness of cut
and its fabulous old age. From what Zack had told him of Mat's lighter
peculiarities of character, he anticipated a somewhat uncivilized
reception from the elder of his two hosts; and when he got to Kirk
Street, he certainly found that his expectations were, upon the whole,
handsomely realized.

On mounting the dark and narrow wooden staircase of the tobacconist's
shop, his nose was greeted by a composite smell of fried liver and
bacon, brandy and water, and cigar smoke, pouring hospitably down to
meet him through the crevices of the drawing-room door. When he got into
the room, the first object that struck his eyes at one end of it, was
Zack, with his hat on, vigorously engaged in freshening up the dusty
carpet with a damp mop; and Mat, at the other, presiding over the
frying-pan, with his coat off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his
shoulders, a glass of steaming hot grog on the chimney-piece above him,
and a long pewter toasting-fork in his hand.

"Here's the honored guest of the evening arrived before I've swabbed
down the decks," cried Zack, jogging his friend in the ribs with the
long handle of the mop.

"How are you, to-night?" said Mat, with familiar ease, not moving from
the frying-pan, but getting his right hand free to offer to Mr. Blyth
by taking the pewter toasting-fork between his teeth. "Sit down anywhere
you like; and just holler through the crack in the floor, under
the bearskins there, if you want anything out of the Bocker-shop,
below."--("He means Tobacco when he says Bocker," interposed Zack,
parenthetically.) "Can you set your teeth in a baked tater or two?"
continued Mat, tapping a small Dutch oven before the fire with his
toasting-fork. "We've got you a lot of fizzin' hot liver and bacon to
ease down the taters with what you call a relish. Nice and streaky,
ain't it?" Here the ho