he'll be just as jolly as he is at Billy Devine's. What say to come down
to-night?"

"All right, only not too late."

At twelve we departed, and I was taken to a row of low cottages, which,
however, were fairly solid and neat. At first we sat in a kitchen, and I
was accommodated with a tub for a seat. Our light came from the fire and
a dull lamp, which only made a reddened twilight in the air. The fat
woman watched me like a cat, and I fancied that her mouth was like that
of a carnivorous beast. The sly old man looked on the ground, but his
stealthy eye--like the eye of a cunning magpie--glittered sometimes as
he turned it on me. Blackey was most cordial, and soon proposed a song.
He obliged first, and warbled some ghastly affair which aimed at being
nautical in sentiment. The chorus contained some observations like
"Hilley-hiley-Hilley-ho," and it also gave us the information that
gentleman named Jack would shortly come home from the sea. The thing was
a silly Cockney travesty of a sailor's song, but we were all pleased
with it, and it led the way nicely to the girl's ditty, which stated
that somebody was going sailing, sailing, over the bounding main
(sailors always mention the sea as the bounding main), and by easy steps
we got to the fat woman's "Banks of Hallan Worrrtter." We were a jovial
company: four of us were wondering how they could rob the fifth, and
that fifth resolved, quite early in this sèance, to use his
knuckle-duster promptly, and to prevent either of the male warblers from
getting behind him, at any risk. About three o'clock the junior lady
placed herself on my knee, and her husband approvingly described her as
a bloomin' baggage. I did not like the special perfume which my friend
employed for her hair, and I also disliked the evidences which went to
prove that the bath was not her favourite luxury; but we did not fall