you, and I was to say, "With Mr Alfred
Lammle's compliments on his leaving England."' Miss Jenny said it with
such spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as
might have added to Mr Fledgeby's miseries, if he could have noticed
either, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head.

'Shall I go for the police?' inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble start
towards the door.

'Stop! No, don't!' cried Fledgeby. 'Don't, please. We had better keep it
quiet. Will you be so good as shut the door? Oh I do smart so!'

In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr Fledgeby came
wallowing out of the easy-chair, and took another roll on the carpet.

Now the door's shut,' said Mr Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, with
his Turkish cap half on and half off, and the bars on his face getting
bluer, 'do me the kindness to look at my back and shoulders. They must
be in an awful state, for I hadn't got my dressing-gown on, when the
brute came rushing in. Cut my shirt away from the collar; there's a pair
of scissors on that table. Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, with his hand to
his head again. 'How I do smart, to be sure!'

'There?' inquired Miss Jenny, alluding to the back and shoulders.

'Oh Lord, yes!' moaned Fledgeby, rocking himself. 'And all over!
Everywhere!'

The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and laid
bare the results of as furious and sound a thrashing as even Mr Fledgeby
merited. 'You may well smart, young man!' exclaimed Miss Jenny. And
stealthily rubbed her little hands behind him, and poked a few exultant
pokes with her two forefingers over the crown of his head.

'What do you think of vinegar and brown paper?' inquired the suffering
Fledgeby, still rocking and moaning. 'Does it look as if vinegar and
brown paper was the sort of application?'

'Yes,' said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. 'It looks as if it ought
to be Pickled.'

Mr Fledgeby collapsed under the word 'Pickled,' and groaned again.
'My kitchen is on this floor,' he said; 'you'll find brown paper in a
dresser-drawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you have
the kindness to make a few plasters and put 'em on? It can't be kept too
quiet.'

'One, two--hum--five, six. You'll want six,' said the dress-maker.

'There's smart enough,' whimpered Mr Fledgeby, groaning and writhing
again, 'for sixty.'

Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the brown
paper and found the vinegar, and