gentleman
was there.

'Yes,' replied Nicholas, turning towards the corner from which the voice
proceeded. 'Who is that?'

'Only me, sir,' replied the voice. 'Now if you please, ma'am.'

A gleam of light shone into the place, and presently the servant girl
appeared, bearing a light, and followed by her young mistress, who
seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty and confusion.

At sight of the young lady, Nicholas started and changed colour; his
heart beat violently, and he stood rooted to the spot. At that instant,
and almost simultaneously with her arrival and that of the candle, there
was heard a loud and furious knocking at the street-door, which caused
Newman Noggs to jump up, with great agility, from a beer-barrel on which
he had been seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, and with a face of
ashy paleness, 'Bobster, by the Lord!'

The young lady shrieked, the attendant wrung her hands, Nicholas gazed
from one to the other in apparent stupefaction, and Newman hurried to
and fro, thrusting his hands into all his pockets successively, and
drawing out the linings of every one in the excess of his irresolution.
It was but a moment, but the confusion crowded into that one moment no
imagination can exaggerate.

'Leave the house, for Heaven's sake! We have done wrong, we deserve it
all,' cried the young lady. 'Leave the house, or I am ruined and undone
for ever.'

'Will you hear me say but one word?' cried Nicholas. 'Only one. I will
not detain you. Will you hear me say one word, in explanation of this
mischance?'

But Nicholas might as well have spoken to the wind, for the young lady,
with distracted looks, hurried up the stairs. He would have followed
her, but Newman, twisting his hand in his coat collar, dragged him
towards the passage by which they had entered.

'Let me go, Newman, in the Devil's name!' cried Nicholas. 'I must speak
to her. I will! I will not leave this house without.'

'Reputation--character--violence--consider,' said Newman, clinging round
him with both arms, and hurrying him away. 'Let them open the door.
We'll go, as we came, directly it's shut. Come. This way. Here.'

Overpowered by the remonstrances of Newman, and the tears and prayers
of the girl, and the tremendous knocking above, which had never ceased,
Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried off; and, precisely as Mr Bobster
made his entrance by the street-door, he and Noggs made their exit by
the area-gate.

They hurried away, th