a-crying cupboard for a hour past.--Let's look hout for a hinn!"




CHAPTER V.

An extraordinary Occurrence--a Publican taking Orders.


Tying the legs of the birds together with a piece of string, Spriggs
proudly carried them along, dangling at his fingers' ends.

After tramping for a long mile, the friends at length discovered, what
they termed, an house of "hentertainment."

Entering a parlour, with a clean, sanded floor, (prettily herring-boned,
as the housemaids technically phrase it,) furnished with red curtains,
half a dozen beech chairs, three cast-iron spittoons, and a beer-bleached
mahogany table,--Spriggs tugged at the bell. The host, with a rotund,
smiling face, his nose, like Bardolph's, blazing with fiery meteors, and
a short, white apron, concealing his unmentionables, quickly answered the
tintinabulary summons.

"Landlord," said Spriggs, who had seated himself in a chair, while Mr.
Richard was adjusting his starched collar at the window;--"Landlord! ve
should like to have this 'ere game dressed."

The Landlord eyed the 'game' through his spectacles, and smiled.