k place until the appearance of the second
course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the
plum-pudding, now in a grilled state, and the remanent of mince-pies
from yesterday's meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as
these delicacies were placed on the table: she set them down hastily,
and was for operating an instant retreat.

But the Campaigner shrieked after her, "Who has eaten that pudding? I
insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at two o'clock when
I went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and
there's pounds of it gone since then! There were five mince-pies! Mr.
Pendennis! you saw yourself there were five that went away from table
yesterday--where's the other two Maria? You leave the house this night,
you thieving, wicked wretch--and I'll thank you to come back to me
afterwards for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine
months, Mr. Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the
greatest liar and the greatest thief."

At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and as the phrase
is, gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go! wouldn't she go? Pay
her her wages, and let her go out of that ell upon hearth, was Maria's
prayer. "It isn't you, sir," she said, turning to Clive. "You are good
enough, and works hard enough to git the guineas which you give out to
pay that doctor; and she don't pay him--and I see five of them in her
purse wrapped up in paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to him--and
I heard her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she heard her.
Go! won't I just go, I dispises your puddens and pies!" and with a laugh
of scorn this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the immediate
vicinity of the Campaigner's nose.

"I will pay her her wages, and she shall go this instant!" says Mrs.
Mackenzie, taking her purse out.

"Pay me with them suvverings that you have got in it, wrapped up in
paper. See if she haven't, Mr. Newcome," the refractory waiting-woman
cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh.

Mrs. Mackenzie briskly shut her portemonnaie, and rose up from table,
quivering with indignant virtue. "Go!" she exclaimed, "go and pack your
trunks this instant! you quit the house this night, and a policeman
shall see to your boxes before you leave it!"

Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the Campaigner
had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her pocket,--a
h