dear. I've found a _place_--an illigant hidin'
in an owld schooner up the river."

"Safe?"

"As a church. I'll take yez to't to-morra. Master Sam tells me
sorra a sowl goes nigh ut. He tuk me to see ut. I say, me darlint,
I'd be lettin' that young fool down aisier than the pote. He's a
poor little snob, but he's more like a man than Moggridge."

"He's a bad ass, is Moggridge," assented the Honourable Frederic.
"Come, Nellie, we've a day's work before us, remember."

A friend of mine, the son of steady-going Nihilist parents, and
therefore an authority, assures me that the Honourable Frederic
cannot have been a conspirator for the simple reason that he shaved
his chin regularly. Be this as it may, to-night he smiled
mysteriously as he rose, and winked at his wife in a most plebeian
way. I regret to say that both smile and wink were returned.

[Illustration: Winked . . . in a most plebeian way.]

CHAPTER XVI.

OF STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS; AND THAT THE NOMINALISTS ERR WHO HOLD A
THING TO BE WHAT IT IS CALLED.

At two o'clock next morning Mr. Moggridge closed the door of his
lodgings behind him, and stepping out into the street stood for some
moments to ponder.

A smile sat upon his lips, witness to pleasure that underlies poetic
pains. The Collector of Customs was in humour this morning, and had
written thirty lines of Act IV. of _Love's Dilemma: a Comedy_,
before breakfast, for it was his custom to rise early and drink
regularly of the waters of Helicon before seeking his office.
It is curious that the Civil Service should so often divide its
claims with the Service of the Muse. I remember that the Honourable
Frederic once drew my attention to this, and supplied me with several
instances:--"There was What's-his-name, you know, and t'other Johnny
up in the Lakes, and a heap I can't remember at the moment--fancy it
must come from the stamps--licked off with the gum, perhaps."

Be that as it may, Mr. Moggridge had written thirty lines this
morning, and was even now, as he stood in the street and stared at
the opposite house, repeating to himself a song he had just composed
for his hero. It is worth quoting, for, with slight alteration, I
know no better clue to the poet's mood at the time. The play has
since been destroyed, for reasons of which some hint may be found in
the next few chapters; but the unfinished song is still preserved
among the author's notes, where it is headed--