I'll make 'im sorry for this afore I've done with 'im. I'll learn 'im to
insult a respectable British tradesman. I'll show him who's who."

"What'll you do?" inquired the other.

"Never you mind," said Mr. Kybird, who was not in a position to satisfy
his curiosity--"never you mind. You go and get on with your work,
Charles, and p'r'aps by the time your moustache 'as grown big enough to
be seen, you'll 'ear something."

"I 'eard something the other day," said the bar-man, musingly; "about you
it was, but I wouldn't believe it."

"Wot was it?" demanded the other.

"Nothing much," replied Charles, standing with his hand on the door-knob,
"but I wouldn't believe it of you; I said I couldn't."

"Wot--was--it?" insisted Mr. Kybird.

"Why, they said you once gave a man a fair price for a pair of trousers,"
said the barman, indignantly.

He closed the door behind him softly, and Mr. Kybird, after a brief
pause, opened it again and, more softly still, quitted the precincts of
The Goblets, and stepped across the road to his emporium.

[Illustration: "He stepped across the road to his emporium."]

Captain Nugent, in happy ignorance of the dark designs of the wardrobe