been a little hurt. "It is nothing at
all serious, and affects only my appearance, so that I had better
remain in for a day. I shall certainly be with you on Sunday. Don't
let Gazebee trouble himself to come to me, as I shan't be at home
after to-day." Gazebee did trouble himself to come to Mount Street so
often, and South Audley Street, in which was Mr Gazebee's office, was
so disagreeably near to Mount Street, that Crosbie inserted this in
order to protect himself if possible. Then he gave special orders
that he was to be at home to no one, fearing that Gazebee would call
for him after the hours of business--to make him safe and carry him
off bodily to St. John's Wood.

The beefsteak and the dose of physic and the cold-water application
which was kept upon it all night was not efficacious in dispelling
that horrid, black-blue colour by ten o'clock on the following
morning.

"It certainly have gone down, Mr Crosbie; it certainly have," said
the mistress of the lodgings, touching the part affected with her
finger. "But the black won't go out of them all in a minute; it won't
indeed. Couldn't you just stay in one more day?"

"But will one day do it, Mrs Phillips?"

Mrs Phillips couldn't take upon herself to say that it would. "They
mostly come with little red streaks across the black before they goes
away," said Mrs Phillips, who would seem to have been the wife of a
prize-fighter, so well was she acquainted with black eyes.

"And that won't be till to-morrow," said Crosbie, affecting to be
mirthful in his agony.

"Not till the third day;--and then they wears themselves out,
gradual. I never knew leeches do any good."

He stayed at home the second day, and then resolved that he would
go to his office, black eye and all. In that morning's newspaper he
saw an account of the whole transaction, saying how Mr C---- of the
office of General Committees, who was soon about to lead to the
hymeneal altar the beautiful daughter of the Earl de C----, had been
made the subject of a brutal personal attack on the platform of the
Great Western Railway Station, and how he was confined to his room
from the injuries which he had received. The paragraph went on to
state that the delinquent had, as it was believed, dared to raise
his eyes to the same lady, and that his audacity had been treated
with scorn by every member of the noble family in question. "It was,
however, satisfactory to know," so said the newspaper, "that Mr
C----