Did you ever go into a ham-and-beef shop?  It’s just like this.  I went into Moser’s last week.  Just when I got in I tripped over some ribs of beef lying in the doorway, and before I had time to say I preferred my beef without any boot-blacking, I fell head-first against an immense sirloin on the parlour table.  Mrs. Moser called all the men who were loafing around, and all the boys and girls, and they carved away at the sirloin for five hours without being able to get my head out.  At last an old gentleman, who was having his dinner there, said he couldn’t bear whiskers served up as a vegetable with his beef.  Then they knew they’d got near my face, so they sent away the Coroner and pulled me out, and when I got home my coat-tail pockets were full of old ham-bones.  The boy did that—­young varmint!  I’ll ham-bone him when I catch him next!

CHAPTER II.

Let me see, what was I after?  Oh, yes, I remember.  I was going to tell you about our Slavey and the pretty pickle she got us into.  I’m not sure it wasn’t POTTLE’S fault.  I said to him, just as he was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand after his fourth pint of shandy-gaff, “Pottle, my boy,” I said, “you’re no end of a chap for shouting ‘Cash forward!’ so that all the girls in the shop hear you and say to one another, ’My, what a lovely voice that young POTTLE’S got!’ But you’re not much good at helping a pal to order a new coat, nor for the matter of that, in helping him to try it on.”  But Pottle only hooked up his nose and looked scornful.  Well, when the coat came home the Slavey brought it up, and put it on my best three-legged chair, and then flung out of the room with a toss of her head, as much as to say, “’Ere’s extravagance!” First I looked at the coat, and then the coat seemed to look at me.  Then I lifted it up and put it down again, and sent out for three-ha’porth of gin.  Then I tackled the blooming thing again.  One arm went in with a ten-horse power shove.  Next I tried the other.  After no end of fumbling I found the sleeve.  “In you go!” I said to my arm, and in he went, only it happened to be the breast-pocket.  I jammed, the pocket creaked, but I jammed hardest, and in went my fist, and out went the pocket.

Then I sat down, tired and sad, and the lodging-house cat came in and lapped up the milk for my tea, and Moser’s bull-dog just looked me up, and went off with the left leg of my trousers, and the landlady’s little boy peeped round the door and cried, “Oh, Mar, the poor gentleman’s red in the face—­I’m sure he’s on fire!” And the local fire-brigade was called up, and they pumped on me for ten minutes, and then wrote “Inextinguishable” in their note-books, and went home; and all the time I couldn’t move, because my arms were stuck tight in a coat two sizes too small for me.

CHAPTER III.