up, with great agility, from a beer-barrel on which he had been seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, and with a face of ashy paleness, `Bobster, by the Lord!'

The young lady shrieked, the attendant wrung her hands, Nicholas gazed from one to the other in apparent stupefaction, and Newman hurried to and fro, thrusting his hands into all his pockets successively, and drawing out the linings of every one in the excess of his irresolution. It was but a moment, but the confusion crowded into that one moment no imagination can exaggerate.

`Leave the house, for Heaven's sake! We have done wrong -- we deserve it all,' cried the young lady. `Leave the house, or I am ruined and undone for ever.'

`Will you hear me say but one word?' cried Nicholas. `Only one. I will not detain you. Will you hear me say one word, in explanation of this mischance?'

But Nicholas might as well have spoken to the wind, for the young lady, with distracted looks, hurried up the stairs. He would have followed her, but Newman, twisting his hand in his coat collar, dragged him towards the passage by which they had entered.

`Let me go, Newman, in the Devil's name!' cried Nicholas. `I must speak to her -- I will! I will not leave this house without.'

`Reputation -- character -- violence -- consider,' said Newman, clinging round him with both arms, and hurrying him away. `Let them open the door. We'll go, as we came, directly it's shut. Come. This way. Here.'

Overpowered by the remonstrances of Newman, and the tears and prayers of the girl, and the tremendous knocking above, which had never ceased, Nicholas allowed himself to be hurried off; and, precisely as Mr Bobster made his entrance by the street-door, he and Noggs made their exit by the area-gate.

They hurried away, through several streets, without stopping or speaking. At last, they halted and confronted each other with blank and rueful faces.

`Never mind,' said Newman, gasping for breath. `Don't be cast down. It's all right. More fortunate next time. It couldn't be helped. I did my part.'

`Excellently,' replied Nicholas, taking his hand. `Excellently, and like the true and zealous friend you are. Only -- mind, I am not disappointed, Newman, and feel just as much indebted to you -- only it was the wrong lady.'

`Eh?' cried Newman Noggs. `Taken in by the servant?'

`Newman, Newman,' said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder: `it was the wrong servant too.'

Newman's under-jaw dropped, and he gazed at Nicholas, with his sound eye fixed fast and motionless in his head.

`Don't take it to heart,' said Nicholas; `it's of no consequence; you see I don't care about it; you followed the wrong person, that's all.'

That was all. Whether Newman Noggs had looked round the pump, in a slanting direction, so long, that his sight became impaired; or whether, finding that there was time to spare, he had recruited himself with a few drops of something stronger than the pump could yield -- by whatsoever means it had come to pass, this was his mistake. And Nicholas went home to brood upon it, and to meditate upon the charms of the unknown young lady, now as far beyond his reach as ever.


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