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thing around them, that Obadiah Drant, who was standing with Pokey at the door of the Crumpet and Crown, so rolled his mysterious-looking head, and so tortured and twisted his inelegant body, that his friend began to think that he had had for dinner something which didn't agree with him.

"What's the matter?" inquired Pokey. "Have you got the stomach-ache?"

"The stomach-ache!" exclaimed Obadiah. "Isn't it enough to give any man the stomach-ache?" That's the dodge, is it?" he added, sarcastically. "Very good: that's it."

"What's it?" demanded Pokey.

"What's it! What! Don't your ideas fructify?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? There! That any man in the nineteenth century should be able to see the world wag as it does, without having any ideal fructification! Pokey! you're a flat. You'd never do to sit in the House of Commons! Even Bobby Peel would beat you! Why, just look you here: didn't you see Teddy pass just now with the old maid?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well! Don't you see?"

"See what?"

"Why, the dodge!"

"What dodge?"

What dodge! Pokey, you were never born to be the Lord Chancellor. Amalgamate your ideas, man. Let 'em flow and fructify! What! Well, as true as I'm alive!—Why, just look you here: Do you mean to tell me—a man of your scope, and sense, and fructifertility—do you mean to tell me, point blank, without any reservation of ideas, that you don't see as clear as mud what Ted's been up to?"

"Can you?"

"Can I! Who can't! It's as plain as the sun at twelve o'clock. Look you here: when Harry the Eighth married Nell Gwynne, did they marry in public? No! They married privately. Now don't you see?"

"I can't say as I do," replied Pokey.

"You can't! Well, I never see such a job in my life. What! Can't you see there's been a private marriage here?"

"No, I'm blest if I can."

"Pokey, you ought to go to school again, and have them ideas of yours put under a course of fructification. Not see it! Send I may live, if I ever see such a job before! Where are your eyes? what's become of your notions? are all your ideas asleep or what, that you can't make nothing out of this?"

"Well, what do you make of it?"

"What do I make of it! Just look you here. Hasn't the old maid been up to London, and didn't Ted follow her, and haven't they been there all this time, and now haven't they come back together?"

"Well! and what of that?"

"What of it! Have you lived all these years in the world and can't see what they've been up to! They couldn't marry here. Oh! dear