round and opened the door for us; and ven you had opened the door, you
saw a voman had joined us, and you were a funked then, and stayed vithout
the crib, to keep vatch vhile ve vent in."

"Well, well," cried Ned, "what the devil has all this rigmarole got to do
with Paul?"

"Now don't be glimflashy, but let me go on smack right about. Vell, ven
ve came out, you minds as 'ow the voman had a bundle in her arms, and you
spake to her; and she answered you roughly, and left us all, and vent
straight home; and ve vent and fenced the swag' that wery night and
afterwards napped the regulars. And sure you made us laugh 'artily,
Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 'That 'ere voman is a rum blo"
en.' So she vas, Meester Pepper!"

[The reader has probably observed the use made by Dummie and Mrs.
Lobkins of Irish phraseology or pronunciation, This is a remarkable
trait in the dialect of the lowest orders in London, owing, we
suppose, to their constant association with emigrants from "the
first flower of the earth." Perhaps it is a modish affectation
among the gentry of St. Giles's, just as we eke out our mother-
tongue with French at Mayfair.]

"Oh, spare me," said Ned, affectedly, "and make haste; you keep me all in
the dark. By the way, I remember that you joked me about the bundle; and
when I asked what the woman had wrapped in it, you swore it was a child.
Rather more likely that the girl, whoever she was, would have left a
child behind her than carried one off!" The face of Dummie waxed big
with conscious importance.