“I had a tight squeak for it,” interrupts Mr. Rapp; “but I beat them at last, in the dark of the Durham-street arch.  That’s a dodge worth being up to when you get into a row near the Adelphi.  Fire away, Muff—­where did you go?”

“Right up a court to Maiden-lane, in the hope of bolting into the Cider-cellars.  But they were all shut up, and the fire out in the kitchen, so I ran on through a lot of alleys and back-slums, until I got somewhere in St. Giles’s, and here I took a cab.”

“Why, you hadn’t got an atom of tin when you left us,” says Mr. Manhug.

“Devil a bit did that signify.  You know I only took the cab—­I’d nothing at all to do with the driver; he was all right in the gin-shop near the stand, I suppose.  I got on the box, and drove about for my own diversion—­I don’t exactly know where; but I couldn’t leave the cab, as there was always a crusher in the way when I stopped.  At last I found myself at the large gate of New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, so I knocked until the porter opened it, and drove in as straight as I could.  When I got to the corner of the square, by No. 7, I pulled up, and, tumbling off my perch, walked quietly along to the Portugal-street wicket.  Here the other porter let me out, and I found myself in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

“And what became of the cab?” asks Mr. Jones.

“How should I know!—­it was no affair of mine.  I dare say the horse made it right; it didn’t matter to him whether he was standing in St. Giles’s or Lincoln’s Inn, only the last was the most respectable.”

“I don’t see that,” says Mr. Manhug, refilling his pipe.

“Why, all the thieves in London live in St. Giles’s.”

“Well, and who live in Lincoln’s Inn?”

“Pshaw! that’s all worn out,” continues Manhug.  “I got to the College of Surgeons, and had a good mind to scud some oyster shells through the windows, only there were several people about—­fellows coming home to chambers, and the like; so I pattered on until I found myself in Drury-lane, close to a coffee-shop that was open.  There I saw such a jolly row!”

Mr. Muff utters this last sentence in the same ecstatic accents of admiration with which we speak of a lovely woman or a magnificent view.

“What was it about?” eagerly demand the rest of the circle.

“Why, just as I got in, a gentleman of a vivacious turn of mind, who was taking an early breakfast, had shied a soft-boiled egg at the gas-light, which didn’t hit it, of course, but flew across the tops of the boxes, and broke upon a lady’s head.”

“What a mess it must have made?” interposes Mr. Manhug.  “Coffee-shop eggs are always so very albuminous.”

“Once I found some feathers in one, and a foetal chick,” observes Mr. Rapp.

“Knock that down for a good one!” says Mr. Jones, taking the poker and striking three distinct blows on the mantel-piece, the last of which breaks off the corner.  “Well, what did the lady do?”