There being nearly thirty offices in the building, there were of course in winter as many fires, and as many coal-scuttles required.  When the eyes of the devoted Matthew gazed on the object of his heart’s desire toiling up the well-stair, he felt he knew not what; and, with a heart palpitating with the apprehension that his proffered service might be rejected (poor deluded mortal!), he begged he might assist her.  With a glance that he thought sufficient to ignite the insensible carbon, she accepted his offer.  Happy Matthew!—­he grasped the handles her warm red-hands had touched!—­Cold-blooded, unimaginative beings may deride his enthusiasm; but after all, the sentiment he experienced was similar to, and quite as pure, as that of Tom Jones, when he fondled Sophia Western’s little muff.

But, alas!—­

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Two months after this event, ‘his Mary’ married the baker’s man!—­

* * * * * * * * * *

Wallis’s nephew had several times invited me to pay him a visit at his uncle’s house, at Crouchend; and so once, during the absence of that gentleman who was ruralizing at Tonbridge, I trudged down to his villa.

Nothing would suit Master John, but that he must ‘have out’ his uncle’s gun; and we certainly shot at, and frightened, many sparrows.

He was just pointing at a fresh quarry, when the loud crow of a cock arrested his arm.

“That’s Doddington’s game ’un, I know,” said Master John.  “What d’ye think—­if he did’nt ‘pitch into’ our ‘dunghill’ the other day, and laid him dead at a blow.  I owe him one!—­Come along.”  I followed in his footsteps, and soon beheld Chanticleer crowing with all the ostentation of a victor at the hens he had so ruthlessly widowed.  A clothes-horse, with a ragged blanket, screened us from his view; and Master’John, putting the muzzle of his gun through a hole in this novel ambuscade, discharged its contents point blank into the proclaimer of the morn—­and laid him low.

I trembled; for I felt that we had committed a ‘foul murder.’  Master Johnny, however, derided my fears—­called it retributive justice—­and ignominiously consigned the remains of a game-cock to a dunghill!

The affair appeared so like a cowardly assassination, in which I was (though unwillingly—­) ’particeps criminis’—­that I walked away without partaking of the gooseberry-pie, which he had provided for our supper.

CHAPTER VI.—­A Commission.

“Och! thin, Paddy, what’s the bothuration; if you carry me, don’t I carry the whiskey, sure, and that’s fair and aqual!”

I was early at my post on the following morning, being particularly anxious to meet with Mr. Wallis’s scapegrace nephew, and ascertain whether anybody had found the dead body of the game-cock, and whether an inquest had been held; for I knew enough of the world to draw my own conclusions as to the result.  He, although the principal, being a relative, would get off with a lecture, while I should probably be kicked out of my place.