gh a pane in the
kitchen-vindow. You vas the least of us, big as you be now; and you vent
round and opened the door for us; and ven you had opened the door,
you saw a voman had joined us, and you were a funked then, and stayed
vithout the crib, to keep vatch vhile ve vent in."

"Well, well," cried Ned, "what the devil has all this rigmarole got to
do with Paul?"

"Now don't be glimflashy, but let me go on smack right about. Vell, ven
ve came out, you minds as 'ow the voman had a bundle in her arms, and
you spake to her; and she answered you roughly, and left us all, and
vent straight home; and ve vent and fenced the swag' that wery night
and afterwards napped the regulars. And sure you made us laugh 'artily,
Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 'That 'ere voman is a rum blo"
en.' So she vas, Meester Pepper!"

[The reader has probably observed the use made by Dummie and Mrs.
Lobkins of Irish phraseology or pronunciation, This is a remarkable
trait in the dialect of the lowest orders in London, owing, we
suppose, to their constant association with emigrants from "the
first flower of the earth." Perhaps it is a modish affectation
among the gentry of St. Giles's, just as we eke out our mother-
tongue with French at Mayfair.]

"Oh, spare me," said Ned, affectedly, "and make haste; you keep me all
in the dark. By the way, I remember that you joked me about the bundle;
and when I asked what the woman had wrapped in it, you swore it was a
child. Rather more likely that the girl, whoever she was, would have
left a child behind her than carried one off!" The face of Dummie waxed
big with conscious importance.

"Vell, now, you would not believe us; but it vas all true. That 'ere
bundle vas the voman's child,--I s'pose an unnatural von by the gemman;
she let us into the 'ouse on condition we helped her off vith it. And,
blow me tight, but ve paid ourselves vel for our trouble. That 'ere
voman vas a strange cretur; they say she had been a lord's blowen; but
howsomever, she was as 'ot-'eaded and hodd as if she had been. There
vas old Nick's hown row made on the matter, and the revard for our
[de]tection vas so great, that as you vas not much tried yet, Harry
thought it best for to take you vith 'im down to the country, and told
you as 'ow it vas all a flam about the child in the bundle!"

"Faith," said Ned, "I believed him readily enough; and poor Harry was
twisted shortly after, and I