hes piece by piece same as a bushel of oats, and
looking up at the stars atwinkling in the sky, and spotting one of them,
and saying to yourself quietlike, so as them niggers won't hear, 'That's
star is atwinkling over Nelly, too, and maybe she's watching it now.'
It seemed as if we wasn't so far apart then. Somehow it made the world
a taste smaller. 'Shine on, my beauty,' thinks I, 'shine down straight
into Nelly's room, and if she's awake tell her I'm coming, and if she's
asleep just make her dream that I'm loving nobody else till her.' But,
chut! It was myself that was dreaming. Drink up! She married me for my
money, so I'm making it fly."

"And when it's gone--what then?" said Lovibond. "Will you go back to
her!"

"Maybe so, maybe no."

"Will anything be the better because the money's spent?"

"God knows."

"Will she be as sweet and good as she once was when you are as poor as
you were?"

Davy heaved up to his feet. "What's the use of thinking of the like of
that?" he cried. "My money's mine, I baked for it out in that oven. Now
I'm spending it, and what for shouldn't I? Here goes--healths apiece!"

Next day Lovibond and Jenny Crow met on the pier. There they pondered
the ticklish situation of their friends, and every word they said on it
was pointed and punctuated by a sense of their own relations.

"It's plain that the good fools love each other," said Jenny.

"Quite plain," said Lovibond.

"Heigho! It's mad work being angry with somebody you are dying to love,"
said Jenny.

"Colney Hatch is nothing to it," said Lovibond.

"Smaller things have parted people for years," said Jenny.

"Yes; five years," said Lovibond.

"The longer apart the wider the breach, and the harder to cover it,"
said Jenny.

"Just so," said Lovibond.

"They must meet. Of course they'll fight like cat and dog, but better
that than this separation. Time leaves bigger scars than claws ever
made. Now, couldn't we bring them together?"

"Just what I was thinking," said Lovibond.

"I'm sure he must be a dear, simple soul, though I've never set eyes on
him," said Jenny.

"And I'm certain she must be as sweet as an angel, though I've never
seen her," said Lovibond.

Jenny shot a jealous glance at her companion, then cracked two fingers
and said eagerly, "There you are--there's the idea in a cockle-shell.
Now _if each could see the other through other eyes!_"

"The very thing!" said Lovibond.

"Then why don't you give me