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"What do I mean? What! Didn't he have the howdacious impudence, while we were fructifying yesterday in the fair, to tell me plump to my very teeth, that he wasn't here at all the other night!"

"Did he though!" said Pokey.

"Did he? Did he not? I'll back him against life to lie. There's nothing like him in all flesh. He beats Peter the Great hollow, and he could lie a little."

"Some one was with him perhaps," observed Legge.

"Not a bit of it! Not so much as half a one. There we were alone, quietly fructifying about equal rights, when, says he, all at once, says he, 'Isn't your name Drant?' Says I, 'Drant is my name,' says I; 'Obadiah Drant.' 'You sent me a song,' says he, 'didn't you, this morning?' 'I did,' says I, 'according to promise.' 'According to promise,' says he; 'what promise?' 'What promise!' says I; 'what, don't you recollect that I promised to send it?' 'You promised me nothing of the sort,' says he. 'What!' says I; 'what, not the copy of the song you heard me sing?' 'I never heard you sing a song,' says he. 'What,' says I, 'not the other night at the Crumpet?' 'The Crumpet,' says he; 'I was never at the Crumpet but once in my life, and that was in the morning.' 'The morning,' says I; 'I don't speak about morning, I speak about night.' 'I never was there of a night in my life,' says he, I'm blessed if he didn't, plump. Well; this kind of doubled me up: so, looking at him fierce, says I,'What!—do you mean that?' 'Mean it,' says he; 'of course I do. You told Mr. Rouse,' says he, 'that I was there, drinking brandy-and-water.' 'Well, I'm sorry for that,' says I; 'but you know that you was there.' 'I know that I was not,' says he; 'and however you came to think of such a falsehood, I can't imagine.' 'A falsehood,' says I. 'Yes, a falsehood,' says he. 'But you don't,' says I, 'mean to tell me that you wasn't that night at the Crumpet at all?' 'I mean to tell you that you know I was not there,' says he; no better and no worse. Well, this staggered me a little above a bit. 'But,' says I, 'do you really. mean to mean what you say?' 'Of course,' says he, indignantly; 'I was not there, and you know it.' Upon which I was so boney fidely disgusted that I left him to his own fructifying reflections. Now, what do you think of that—eh? What do you think of it?"

"Why it certainly is strange," returned Legge, "that he should deny it to you, there being no one else present."

"Strange! It's stunning!"

"Well, but didn't he laugh at the time?" inquired Pokey.

"Laugh! He looked, for all the world, as if there wasn't a laugh in him. I never, in all my born days, witnessed anything like it. I'll back him against nature. I never saw a fellow tell a lie with so much liberty. He's the swell to swear a man out of his christian name. There's no hesitation about him: there's no such thing as faltering—no such thing as a blush about him while he's at it. He'll lie like a lunatic, that fellow will. And there we see the force of example. He got it all from Teddy Rouse. Ted taught him—safe. I never saw two fellows lie so much alike. But when you come to look at it, isn't it disgusting to see a man like Ted—a man of his cloth—a