they are hungry; biped lions are rarely sulky longer than when their appetite for distinction remains unappeased. Mr. Lillyvick stood higher than ever, for he had shown his power, hinted at his property and testamentary intentions; gained great credit for disinterestedness and virtue; and in addition to all, he was finally accommodated with a much larger tumbler of punch than that which Newman Noggs had so feloniously made off with.
"I say, I beg everybody's pardon for intruding again," said Crowl, looking in at this happy juncture; "but what a queer business this is, isn't it? Noggs has lived in this house now going on for five years, and nobody has ever been to see him before within the memory of the oldest inhabitant."
"It's a strange time of night to be called away, Sir, certainly," said the collector; "and the behaviour of Mr. Noggs himself is, to say the least of it, mysterious."
"Well, so it is," rejoined Crowl; "and I'll tell you what's more—I think these two geniuses, whoever they are, have run away from somewhere."
"What makes you think that, Sir?" demanded the collector, who seemed by a tacit understanding to have been chosen and elected mouth-piece to the company. "You have no reason to suppose that they have run away from anywhere without paying the rates and taxes due, I hope?"
Mr. Crowl, with a look of some contempt, was about to enter a general protest against the payment of rates or taxes, under any circumstances, when he was checked by a timely whisper from Kenwigs, and several frowns and winks from Mrs. K., which providentially stopped him.
"Why the fact is," said Crowl, who had been listening at Newman's door, with all his might and main; "the fact is, that they have been talking so loud, that they quite disturbed me in my room, and so I couldn't help catching a word here, and a word there; and all I heard certainly seemed to refer to their having bolted from some place or other. I don't wish to alarm Mrs. Kenwigs; but I hope they haven't come from any jail or hospital, and brought away a fever or some unpleasantness of that sort, which might be catching for the children."
Mrs. Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed all the tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to restore her to anything like a state of calmness; not to mention the assiduity of Mr. Kenwigs, who held a fat smelling- bottle to his lady's nose, until it became matter of some doubt whether the tears which coursed down her face, were the result of feelings or sal volatile.
The ladies, having expressed their sympathy, singly and separately, fell, according to custom, into a little chorus of soothing expressions, among which, such condolences as "Poor dear!"—"I should feel just the same, if I was her"—" To be sure, it's a very trying thing"—and "Nobody but a mother knows what a mother's feelings is," were among the most prominent and most frequently repeated. In short, the opinion of the company was so clearly manifested, that Mr. Kenwigs
