those great
folks in what's-its-name Place, so I thought I'd wait a day or two, and
if I didn't see her, write.'

'Ah!' exclaimed Newman, cracking his fingers.

'However, I want to hear all the news about them from you,' said Miss La
Creevy. 'How is the old rough and tough monster of Golden Square? Well,
of course; such people always are. I don't mean how is he in health, but
how is he going on: how is he behaving himself?'

'Damn him!' cried Newman, dashing his cherished hat on the floor; 'like
a false hound.'

'Gracious, Mr Noggs, you quite terrify me!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy,
turning pale.

'I should have spoilt his features yesterday afternoon if I could have
afforded it,' said Newman, moving restlessly about, and shaking his fist
at a portrait of Mr Canning over the mantelpiece. 'I was very near it.
I was obliged to put my hands in my pockets, and keep 'em there very
tight. I shall do it some day in that little back-parlour, I know I
shall. I should have done it before now, if I hadn't been afraid of
making bad worse. I shall double-lock myself in with him and have it out
before I die, I'm quite certain of it.'

'I shall scream if you don't compose yourself, Mr Noggs,' said Miss La
Creevy; 'I'm sure I shan't be able to help it.'

'Never mind,' rejoined Newman, darting violently to and fro. 'He's
coming up tonight: I wrote to tell him. He little thinks I know; he
little thinks I care. Cunning scoundrel! he don't think that. Not
he, not he. Never mind, I'll thwart him--I, Newman Noggs. Ho, ho, the
rascal!'

Lashing himself up to an extravagant pitch of fury, Newman Noggs jerked
himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a
human being: now sparring at the little miniatures on the wall, and
now giving himself violent thumps on the head, as if to heighten the
delusion, until he sank down in his former seat quite breathless and
exhausted.

'There,' said Newman, picking up his hat; 'that's done me good. Now I'm
better, and I'll tell you all about it.'

It took some little time to reassure Miss La Creevy, who had been almost
frightened out of her senses by this remarkable demonstration; but that
done, Newman faithfully related all that had passed in the interview
between Kate and her uncle, prefacing his narrative with a statement
of his previous suspicions on the subject, and his reasons for forming
them; and concluding with a communication of the step he had taken in
secretly wri