'"

"Lawks!" ejaculated Huckaback, opening wider and wider his eyes and ears
as his friend went on.

"'And a title--a _lord_, or something of that sort--and you've a great
many country seats; and there's been L10,000 a-year saving up for you
ever since you was born--and heaps of interest besides!'--'pon my soul
he did!"

"Lord, Tit! you take my breath away," gasped Huckaback, his eyes fixed
intently on his friend's face.

"Yes; and they said I might marry the most beautifulest woman that ever
my eyes saw, for the asking."

"You'll forget poor Bob Huckaback, Tit!" murmured his friend,
despondingly.

"Not I, Huckaback--if I get my rights, and you know how to behave
yourself!"

"Have you been to Tag-rag's to-day, after hearing all this?"

[The thermometer seemed to have been here plunged out of hot water into
cold--Titmouse was down at zero in a trice.]

"Oh!--that's it! 'Tis all gone again! What a fool I am! We've clean
forgot this cursed letter--and that leads me to the end of what took
place last night. That cursed shop was what we split on!"

"Split on _the shop_! eh? What's the meaning of that?" inquired
Huckaback, with eager anxiety.

"Why, that's the thing," continued Titmouse, in a faltering tone, and
with a depressed look--"That was what I wanted to know myself; for they
said I'd better go back!! So I said, 'Gents,' said I, 'I'll be---- if
I'll go back to the shop any more;' and I snapped my fingers at
them--so! (for you know what a chap I am when my blood's up.) And they
all turned gashly pale--they did, upon my life--you never saw anything
like it! And one of them said then, in a humble way, 'Wouldn't I please
to go back to the shop, just for a day or two, till things is got to
rights a bit.' 'Not a day nor a minute!' says I, in an immense rage. 'We
think you'd better, really,' said they. 'Then,' says I, 'if that's your
plan, curse me if I won't cut with you all, and I'll employ some one
else!' and--would you believe me?--out I went, bang! into the street!!"

"You _did_, Tit!!" echoed Huckaback, aghast.

"They shouldn't have given me so much brandy and water as they did; I
didn't well know what I was about, what with the news and the spirits!"

"And you went into the street?" inquired Huckaback, with a kind of
horror.

"I did, by Jove, Hucky!"

"They'd given you the sperrits to see what kind of chap you'd be if you
got the property--only to try you, depend on it!"

"Lord! I--I dare say the