s,
who nodded and said gruffly that he remembered.

'I know you do, Jerry,' said Mr Vuffin with profound meaning. 'I know
you remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served
him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had
three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had in his
cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over,
eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was
waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton
stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly
and wicious who whenever his giant wasn't quick enough to please him,
used to stick pins in his legs, not being able to reach up any higher.
I know that's a fact, for Maunders told it me himself.'

'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.

'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin; 'a
grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant
weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in the carawan,
but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be
offered.'

While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the
time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm
corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence
for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other
feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to
the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length
the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they
withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the fire, and the dogs
fast asleep at a humble distance.

After bidding the old man good night, Nell retired to her poor garret,
but had scarcely closed the door, when it was gently tapped at. She
opened it directly, and was a little startled by the sight of Mr Thomas
Codlin, whom she had left, to all appearance, fast asleep down stairs.

'What is the matter?' said the child.

'Nothing's the matter, my dear,' returned her visitor. 'I'm your
friend. Perhaps you haven't thought so, but it's me that's your
friend--not him.'

'Not who?' the child inquired.

'Short, my dear. I tell you what,' said Codlin, 'for all his having a
kind of way with him that you'd be very apt to like, I'm the real,
open-hearted man. I mayn't look it, but I am inde