gage d'amour by a young lady who sold oranges near the Tower. Happily, before this initiatory process, technically termed "ramping," and exercised upon all new comers who seem to have a spark of decency in them, had reduced the bones of Paul, who fought tooth-and-nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia; a man of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum in quiet, suddenly rose, thrust himself between the victim and the assailants, and desired the latter, like one having authority, to leave the lad alone, and go and be dd.
This proposal to resort to another place for amusement, though uttered in a very grave and tranquil manner, produced that instantaneous effect which admonitions from great rogues generally work upon little. Messieurs the "rampers" ceased from their amusements, and the ringleader of the gang, thumping Paul heartily on the back, declared he was a capital fellow, and it was only a bit of a spree like, which he hoped had not given him any offence.
Paul, still clenching his fist, was about to answer in no pacific mood, when a turnkey, who did not
