sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.

"And so Sir Bale is coming home at last," said the Doctor. "Tell us any
more you heard since."

"Nothing," answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. "Nothing
to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
look so dowly now."

"Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?"
said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.

"Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
_you_, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
in time."

"More like to save here than where he is," said the Doctor with another
grave nod.

"He does very wisely," said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of