Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/165

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
135

to speak more courteously, in a poetical abstraction from the things of the external world.

"But," said Dummie, as by degrees he imparted the solution of the Dame's conduct to the listening ear of his companion—"But I opes as ow ven you be out of this ere scrape, leetle Paul, you vill take varning, and drop Meester Pepper's acquaintance, (vich, I must say, I vas alvays a sorry to see you hencourage,) and go home to the Mug, and fam grasp the old mort, for she has not been like the same cretur ever since you vent. She's a delicate-arted oman, that Piggy Lob!"

So appropriate a panegyric on Mrs. Margaret Lobkins might, at another time, have excited Paul's risible muscles; but at that moment he really felt compunction for the unceremonious manner in which he had left her, and the softness of regretful affection imbued in its hallowing colours even the image of Piggy Lob.

In conversation of this intellectual and domestic description, the night and ensuing morning passed away, till Paul found himself in the awful presence of Justice Burnflat. Several cases were dis-