mpanions
near him, almost turned pale at the audacity he was displaying.

"And who are _you_, sir, that dare to presume to bandy words with ME,
sir?" inquired Tag-rag, his deeply pitted face having turned quite
white, and his whole body quivering with rage.

"Tittlebat Titmouse, at your service," was the answer, in a glib tone,
and with a sufficiently saucy air; for Titmouse then felt that he had
passed the Rubicon.

"You heard that, I hope?" inquired Tag-rag, with forced calmness, of a
pale-faced young man, the nearest to him.

"Ye--es, sir," was the meekly reluctant answer.

"This day month you leave, sir!" said Mr. Tag-rag, solemnly--as if
conscious that he was passing a sort of sentence of death upon the
presumptuous delinquent.

"Very well, Mr. Tag-rag--anything that pleases you pleases your humble
servant. I _will_ go this day month, and welcome--I've long wished--and
now, p'r'aps," he added significantly--"it's rather convenient than
otherwise"----

"Then you _sha'n't_ leave, sir," said Tag-rag, furiously.

"But I will, sir. You've given me warning; and, if you haven't, now I
give _you_ warning," replied Titmouse; turning, however, very pale, and
experiencing a certain sudden sinking of the heart--for this was a
serious and most unlooked-for event, and for a while put out of his head
all the agitating thoughts of the last few hours. Poor Titmouse had
enough to bear--what with the delicate raillery and banter of his
refined companions for the rest of the day, find the galling tyranny of
Mr. Tag-rag, (who dogged him about all day, setting him about the most
menial and troublesome offices he could, and constantly saying
mortifying things to him before customers,) and the state of miserable
suspense in which Mr. Gammon had thought fit to leave him; I say that
surely all this was enough for him to bear without having to encounter
at night, as he did, on his return to his lodgings, his blustering
landlady, who vowed that if she sold him out and out she would be put
off no longer--and his pertinacious and melancholy tailor, who, with
sallow unshaven face, told him of five children at home, all ill of the
small-pox, and his wife in an hospital--and he _implored_ a payment on
account. This sufferer succeeded in squeezing out of Titmouse seven
shillings on account, and his landlady extorted ten; which staved off a
distress--direful word!--for some week or two longer; and so they left
him in the possession of eigh