48 T^LI-S AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



— that blessed kind of conveyance whose boast and glory 

 it is to charge yon * only 4d. all the way !' Eg'ad^ says 

 J, I'll be booked for Chester Square." 



" Who's there, Billy /" 



*^ The aunts, you 'know ; elderly maiden ladies, living* 

 in retirement ; two or three hundred dozen of tea-spoons 

 with the famih^ crest; £5,000 in iive-pound each North 

 Riding notes ; butler — an aged elderly man, faithful 

 l)ut unfortunately deaf, sleeping- for safety in a room where 

 nobody can find him, and all that sort of thing*." 



^* But I say, my young friend," joined in the I-can-lay- 

 it-you looking youth, " j^ou should have gone there be- 

 fore—a wide-awake bird like yoa. too." 



^* ' Bless your innocent heart,' as Cabby says, I'd been 

 there too often ; tired 'em out; had to ask for something 

 to drink ; was supposed to smell of smoke, and look 

 ^ wild' ; never got a screw out of either of them during 

 the eighteen months I had been in town. Had I not an 

 income of eighty per annum in a government office, with 

 ji fair chance of promotion — perhaps a little assistance from 

 my father, though that could hardl}^ be required— and so 

 forth ? — No, all I ever got to carry away was a pot of 

 marmalade, and The Youiig Mans Best Friend^ 



*'■ Well, that was handsome, too ; and what did you do 

 with them ?" 



*' Why, The Young Maas Best Friend I made a pre- 

 sent of to a young woman I met in Piccadilly, under the 

 notion that he ought to be as good a friend to her os he 

 was to me ; and the marmalade I made a bargain about 

 with a * poor b'y' selling lucifers — namel}^, that he was to 

 set-to and clear out the whole pot at once. lie was 

 awfully hard-up, but I'll be shot if Aunt Mary's.' making' 

 did'nt beat him, for, after forcing very strong running for 



