Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/278

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248
PAUL CLIFFORD.

giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord!'—among the thirty poor families on the Common; that is, if they behaved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously abstracted!"

"Excellent! charitable man!" ejaculated Mrs. Slopperton.

"While I was thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw before me two men; one of prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his shoulders; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his face; it was a very large hat. My attention was arrested by the singularity of the tall person's hair, and while I was smiling at its luxuriance, I heard him say to his companion,—'Well, Augustus, as you are such a moral dog, he is in your line, not mine, so I leave him to you.'—Little did I think those words related to me. No sooner were they uttered, than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the other fellow then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the way to the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn first to the right and then to the left, and so on—for the best way is, you know,