te, sir?' he asked, at length.

'Yes,' rejoined Mr Folair, looking round for an instant, and immediately
carrying his eyes back again to the ceiling.

'And how dare you bring it here, sir?' asked Nicholas, tearing it into
very little pieces, and jerking it in a shower towards the messenger.
'Had you no fear of being kicked downstairs, sir?'

Mr Folair turned his head--now ornamented with several fragments of the
note--towards Nicholas, and with the same imperturbable dignity, briefly
replied 'No.'

'Then,' said Nicholas, taking up the tall hat and tossing it towards the
door, 'you had better follow that article of your dress, sir, or you
may find yourself very disagreeably deceived, and that within a dozen
seconds.'

'I say, Johnson,' remonstrated Mr Folair, suddenly losing all his
dignity, 'none of that, you know. No tricks with a gentleman's
wardrobe.'

'Leave the room,' returned Nicholas. 'How could you presume to come here
on such an errand, you scoundrel?'

'Pooh! pooh!' said Mr Folair, unwinding his comforter, and gradually
getting himself out of it. 'There--that's enough.'

'Enough!' cried Nicholas, advancing towards him. 'Take yourself off,
sir.'

'Pooh! pooh! I tell you,' returned Mr Folair, waving his hand in
deprecation of any further wrath; 'I wasn't in earnest. I only brought
it in joke.'

'You had better be careful how you indulge in such jokes again,'
said Nicholas, 'or you may find an allusion to pulling noses rather a
dangerous reminder for the subject of your facetiousness. Was it written
in joke, too, pray?'

'No, no, that's the best of it,' returned the actor; 'right down
earnest--honour bright.'

Nicholas could not repress a smile at the odd figure before him, which,
at all times more calculated to provoke mirth than anger, was especially
so at that moment, when with one knee upon the ground, Mr Folair twirled
his old hat round upon his hand, and affected the extremest agony lest
any of the nap should have been knocked off--an ornament which it is
almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted for many months.

'Come, sir,' said Nicholas, laughing in spite of himself. 'Have the
goodness to explain.'

'Why, I'll tell you how it is,' said Mr Folair, sitting himself down
in a chair with great coolness. 'Since you came here Lenville has done
nothing but second business, and, instead of having a reception every
night as he used to have, they have let him come on as if he was
nobody.'