78 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF
" Missus," shouted the fat boy.
"Well Joe/' said the trembling- old lady. " I'm sure I have been a good mistress to you Joe. You have invariably been treated very kindly. You have never had too much to do ; and you have alvi^ays had enough to eat."
This last was an appeal to the fat boy's most sensitive feelings. He seemed touched as he replied, emphatically, —
- ' I knows I has."
- ' Then w^hat can you want to do now?" said the old lady, gaining
courage.
" I wants to make your flesh creep," replied the boy.
This sounded hke a very blood-thirsty mode of showing one's grati- tude ; and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned.
" What do you think I see in this very arbour last night?" inquired the boy.
" Bless us I What ? " exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner of the corpulent youth.
" The strange gentleman — him as had his arm hurt — a kissin' and
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" Who, Joe — who ? None of the servants, I hope."
- ' Worser than that," roared the fat boy, in the old lady's ear.
" Not one of my grand-da'aters ? "
" Worser than that."
"Worse than that Joel" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of human atrocity. " Who was it, Joe ? I insist upon knowing."
The fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, shouted in the old lady's ear, —
" Miss Rachael."
" What ! " said the old lady, in a shrill tone. " Speak louder."
" Miss Rachael," roared the fat boy.
"Myda'ater!"
The train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communi- cated a hlanc-mange like motion to his fat cheeks.
" And she suffered him !" exclaimed the old lady.
A grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said, —
" I see her a kissin' of him agin."
If Mr. Jingle, from his place of concealment, could have beheld the expression which the old lady's face assumed at this communication, the probability is that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed his close vicinity to the summer-house. He listened attentively. Fragments of angry sentences such as, " Without my permission ! " — "At her time of life"— " Miserable old 'ooraan like me"— "Might liave waited till I was dead," and so forth, reached his ears; and then he heard the heels of the fat boy's boots crunching the gravel, as he retired and left the old lady alone.
It was a remarkable coincidence perhaps, but it was nevertheless a fact, that Mr. Jingle within five minutes after his arrival at Manor Farm on the preceding night, had inwardly resolved to lay siege to
