very much disconcerted.

His patron looked at him with a wide display of gums, and shaking his
forefinger, observed:

'You'll come to an evil end, my vagabond friend, I foresee. There's ruin
in store for you.

'Oh if you please, don't, Sir!' cried Rob, with his legs trembling under
him. 'I'm sure, Sir, I only want to work for you, Sir, and to wait upon
you, Sir, and to do faithful whatever I'm bid, Sir.'

'You had better do faithfully whatever you are bid,' returned his
patron, 'if you have anything to do with me.'

'Yes, I know that, Sir,' pleaded the submissive Rob; 'I'm sure of that,
SIr. If you'll only be so good as try me, Sir! And if ever you find me
out, Sir, doing anything against your wishes, I give you leave to kill
me.'

'You dog!' said Mr Carker, leaning back in his chair, and smiling at him
serenely. 'That's nothing to what I'd do to you, if you tried to deceive
me.'

'Yes, Sir,' replied the abject Grinder, 'I'm sure you would be down upon
me dreadful, Sir. I wouldn't attempt for to go and do it, Sir, not if I
was bribed with golden guineas.'

Thoroughly checked in his expectations of commendation, the crestfallen
Grinder stood looking at his patron, and vainly endeavouring not to look
at him, with the uneasiness which a cur will often manifest in a similar
situation.

'So you have left your old service, and come here to ask me to take you
into mine, eh?' said Mr Carker.

'Yes, if you please, Sir,' returned Rob, who, in doing so, had acted
on his patron's own instructions, but dared not justify himself by the
least insinuation to that effect.

'Well!' said Mr Carker. 'You know me, boy?'

'Please, Sir, yes, Sir,' returned Rob, tumbling with his hat, and still
fixed by Mr Carker's eye, and fruitlessly endeavouring to unfix himself.

Mr Carker nodded. 'Take care, then!'

Rob expressed in a number of short bows his lively understanding of this
caution, and was bowing himself back to the door, greatly relieved by
the prospect of getting on the outside of it, when his patron stopped
him.

'Halloa!' he cried, calling him roughly back. 'You have been--shut that
door.'

Rob obeyed as if his life had depended on his alacrity.

'You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that means?'

'Listening, Sir?' Rob hazarded, after some embarrassed reflection.

His patron nodded. 'And watching, and so forth.'

'I wouldn't do such a thing here, Sir,' answered Rob; 'upon my word and
honour,