“I hope you’ll find it to your liking, Mr Stukely,” said our hostess.

“Mishter vat?” exclaimed the foreigner, looking quickly up.  “I tink I”——­

“What is the matter, my dear sir?” enquired the lady of the house.

“Noting, my tear friend, I tought der young gentleman vos a poor unconverted sinner dat I met a long time ago.  Dat is all.  Ve talk of someting else.”

Has the reader forgotten the dark-visaged individual, who at the examination of my lamented father before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy made his appearance in company with Mr Levy and the ready Ikey?  Him I mean of the vivid imagination, who swore to facts which were no facts at all, and whom an unpoetic jury sentenced to vile imprisonment for wilful perjury? There he sat, transformed into a Pole, bearded and whiskered, and the hair of his head close clipped, but in every other regard the same as when the constable invited him to forsake a too prosaic and ungrateful world:  and had Mr Levisohn been wise and guarded, the discovery would never have been made by me; for we had met but once before, then only for a short half hour, and under agitating circumstances.  But my curiosity and attention once roused by his exclamation, it was impossible to mistake my man.  I fixed my eye upon him, and the harder he pulled at his chop, and the more he attempted to evade my gaze, the more satisfied was I that a villain and an impostor was seated amongst us.  Thinking, absurdly enough, to do my host and hostess a lasting service, I determined without delay to unmask the pretended saint, and to secure his victims from the designs he purposed.

“Mr Levisohn,” I said immediately, “you have told the truth—­we have met before.”

“Nevare, my tear friend, you mistake; nevare in my life, upon my vurd.”

“Mrs Tomkins,” I continued, rising, “I should not be worthy of your hospitality if I did not at once make known to you the character of that man.  He is a convicted criminal.  I have myself known him to be guilty of the grossest practices.”  Mr Levisohn dropped his chop, turned his greasy face up, and then looked round the room, and endeavoured to appear unconcerned, innocent, and amazed all at once.  At this moment Jehu entered the room with the pickles, and the face of the deaconess grew fearfully stern.

“Were you ever in the Court of Bankruptcy, Mr Levisohn?” I continued.

“I have never been out of London, my good sare.  You labour under de mistake.—­I excuse you.  Ah!” he cried our suddenly, as if a new idea had struck him very hard; “I see now vot it is.  I explain.  You take me for somebody else.”

“I do not, sir.  I accuse you publicly of having committed perjury of the most shameless kind, and I can prove you guilty of the charge.  Do you know a person of the name of Levy?”

Mr Stanislaus looked to the ceiling after the manner of individuals who desire, or who do not desire, as the case may be, to call a subject to remembrance.  “No,” he answered, after a long pause; “certainly not.  I never hear dat name.”