ppellation) and she were just become the engaged couple!

I was so overcome by grief and indignation at her perfidious duplicity
(since she had frequently encouraged me in my mockeries of her admirer's
uncouthness and rusticity), that I stuck in the throat, and then flung
the salmon violently across a boundary hedge into a yard of poultry.

"Madam," I said, "that fish was to have been laid at your feet as the
visible pledge of my devotion. You have not only lost the gift of a
splendid salmon, but have thrown away the heart of a well-educated
native B.A. and Member of the Bar! And you have gained--hoity toity!
What? Why, a Scotch Bun!"

But almost immediately I was taken by violent remorse for my
presumption, and shed the tears of contrition, entreating
forgiveness--nay, more, I scrambled through a hole in a very thorny
hedge, and, recovering the salmon (which had not had time to become very
severely henpecked), I begged them to accept it between them as a token
of my esteem and good wishes, which they joyfully consented to do. I had
expected that my worthy host and hostess would have shared my astounded
disappointment on hearing of their daughter's engagement; but, on the
contrary, they received the news with smiling complacency.

It appears that Mister CRUM, though endowed with a somewhat sheepish and
bucolical exterior, is of tip-top Scottish caste and lineage, and the
landed proprietor.

I am not to deny the attractiveness of such qualities, though I had
hitherto been under the Fool's Paradise of an impression that they would
have infinitely preferred this humble self as a son-in-law.

However, I am now emerging from my doleful dumps, with the reflection
that, after all, it is contrary to common-sense to drain the cup of
misery to the dregs for so totally inadequate a cause as the ficklety of
any feminine!

XXVII

_Mr Jabberjee is unavoidably compelled to return to town, thereby
affording his Solicitor the inestimable benefit of his personal
assistance. An apparent attempt to pack the Jury._

The Public will be astounded at the news (which came with the perfect
novelty of a surprise upon this insignificant self) that I have ceased
to be the cherished guest beneath the hired Scottish roof of Mister
LEOFRIC ALLBUTT-INNETT and his bucksome lady.

It fell out after this fashion.

One fine September morning, when I was accoutring myself in order to go
out and hunt the robert (N.B. a genuine lo