“IT’S a nasty evening,” said Mr. Dornton, the stockbroker, as he settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham coach, driven by our old friend Mat—an especial friend in need, be it remembered, to the fair sex.

“I wouldn’t be outside,” said Mr. Jones, another stockbroker, “for a trifle.”

“Nor I, as a speculation in options,” said Mr. Parsons, another frequenter of the Alley.

“I wonder what Mat is waiting for,” said Mr. Tidwell, “for we are full inside and out.”

Mr. Tidwell’s doubt was soon solved,—the coach-door opened and Mat somewhat ostentatiously enquired, what indeed he very well knew—“I believe every place is took up inside?”

“We’re all here,” answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual complement of old stagers.

“I told you so, Ma’am,” said Mat, to a female who stood beside him, but still leaving the door open to an invitation from within. However, nobody spoke—on the contrary, I felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbour, dilating himself like the frog in the fable.

“I don’t know what I shall do,” exclaimed the woman; “I’ve nowhere to go to, and it’s raining cats and dogs!”

“You’d better not hang about, anyhow,” said Mat, “for you may ketch your death,—and I’m the last coach,—aint I, Mr. Jones?”

“To be sure you are,” said Mr. Jones, rather impatiently; “shut the door.”

“I told the lady the gentlemen couldn’t make room for her,” answered Mat, in a tone of apology,—“I’m very sorry, my dear” (turning towards the female), “you should have my seat, if you could hold the ribbons—but such a pretty one as you ought to have a coach of her own.”

He began slowly closing the door.

“Stop, Mat, stop!” cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly unclosed again; “I can’t give up my place for I’m expected home to dinner; but if the lady wouldn’t object to sit on my knees——”

“Not the least in the world,” answered Mat, eagerly; “you won’t object, will you, Ma’am, for once in a way, with a married gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach on the road?”

“If I thought I shouldn’t uncommode,” said the lady, precipitately furling her wet umbrella, which she handed in to one gentleman, whilst she favoured another with her muddy pattens. She then followed herself, Mat shutting the door behind her, in such a manner as to help her in. “I’m sure I’m obliged for the favour,” she said, looking round; “but which gentleman was so kind?”

“It was I who had the pleasure of proposing, Madam,” said Mr. Dornton; and before he pronounced the last word she was in his lap, with an assurance that she would sit as lightsome as she could. Both parties seemed very well pleased with the arrangement; but to judge according to the rules of Lavater, the rest of the company were but ill at ease. For my own part, I candidly confess I was equally out of humour with myself and the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I, who had read the lays of the Troubadours—the awards of the old “Courts of Love,”—the lives of the “preux Chevaliers”—the history of Sir Charles Grandison—to be outdone in courtesy to the sex by a married stockbroker! How I grudged him the honour she conferred upon him—how I envied his feelings!

I did not stand alone, I suspect, in this unjustifiable jealousy. Messrs. Jones, Hindmarsh, Tidwell, and Parsons, seemed equally disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true knights, lowered all our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our spurs. Many an unfair gibe was launched at the champion of the fair, and when he attempted to enter into conversation with the lady, he was interrupted by incessant questions of “What is stirring in the Alley?”—“What is doing in Dutch?”—“How are the Rentes?”

To all these questions Mr. Dornton incontinently returned business-like answers, according to the last Stock Exchange quotations; and he was in the middle of an elaborate enumeration, that so and so was very firm, and so and so very low, and this rather brisk, and that getting up, and operations, and fluctuations, and so forth, when somebody enquired about Spanish Bonds.

“They are looking up, my dear,” answered Mr. Dornton, somewhat abstractedly; and before the other stockbrokers had done tittering the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and whilst Mat stood beside the open coach-door, a staid female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern in her hand, came clattering pompously down a front garden.

“Is Susan Pegge come?” enquired a shrill voice.

“Yes, I be,” replied the lady who had been dry nursed from town;—“are you, Ma’am, number ten, Grove Place?”

“This is Mr. Dornton’s,” said the dignified woman in the hood advancing her lantern,—“and—mercy on us! you’re in master’s lap!”

A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corroborated the assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant lady, forgetting her umbrella and her pattens, bolted out of the coach, and with feline celerity rushed up the garden, and down the area, of number ten.

“Renounce the woman!” said Dr. Dornton, as he scuttled out of the stage—“Why the devil didn’t she tell me she was the new cook?”