the Cock and Bottle, where we've put up for the day, on our way to see mis’ess’s friends at Binegar Fair, where they'll be lying under canvas for a night or two. As for the victuals at the Cock I can’t testify to ’em at all; but for the drink, they’ve the rarest drop of Old Tom that [ve tasted for many a year.”
“Thanks; but I am a teetotaler, and I have lunched,” said Joshua, who could fully believe his father’s teatimony to the gin from the odor of his breath. ‘ You see we have to observe regular habits here, and I couldn’t be seen at the Cock and Bottle just now.”
“Oh, dammy, then don’t come, your reverence, Per- haps you won’t mind standing treat for those who can be seen there.”;
"Not a penny,” said the younger, firmly. “ You've had enough already.”
“Thank you for nothing. By-the- bye, who was that spindle -legged, shoe-buckled parson feller we met by now? He seemed to think we should poison him.”
Joshua remarked coldly that it waa the principal of his college, guardedly inquiring,"Did you tell him whom you were come to see ?”
His father did not reply. He and his strapping gypsy wife—if she were his wife—stayed no longer, and disappeared in the direction of the High Street. Joshua Halborongh went back to the library. Determined as was his nature, he wept hot tears upon the books, and was immeasurably more wretched that afternoon than the unwelcome millwright. In the evening he sat down and wrote a letter to his brother, in which, after stating what had happened, and expatiating upon this new disgrace in the gypsy wife, he propounded a plan for raising money sufficient to induce the couple to emigrate to Canada, “It is our
