THERE had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No wreathÈd pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like locusts on a Bedouin plantation.

Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were, in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about themselves, too indignant to eat.

Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings and the toasted bread, frozen stiff in their own fat; and out went the vanguard to warn the main army of fashion that scurrility, satire and malice were abroad in many metres.

"Listen to this, Moon," ejaculated Major Tarry, as, undeterred by the driving wind, he strode along, quoting extracts that were perfectly inaudible to his companion.

"Listen to this, will you listen to this,"

"Yes, but listen to this," said the Justice treading heavily in a puddle as he spoke.

"Very low, very low indeed," said Tarry.

"So 'tis," quoth the Justice, "but the next verse is lower still."

"Ha, ha," said Tarry, "low, d——d low! But 'sblood, the fellow has humour."

"Humour," said the Justice, "you call this obscene doggerel, humour?"

"In parts, sir, in parts."

"I call it melancholy and libidinous."

Mrs. Courteen was seated at her window disconsolately regarding the rain.

"Gemini, child!" she exclaimed. "What can be the matter with Mr. Moon and the Major that they gesticulate so wildly."

"They're reading books, ma'am," Betty announced.

"Reading book, but they are standing at the street corner like Methodies!"

"They'm beÄnt gone sick mad for love of 'ee, do 'ee think, Ma'am?"

"Flatterer," sighed Mrs. Courteen. "No, child, they have probably been converted. I detect Methodism in their madness. Te-hee! I must keep that for Archdeacon Conybeare, who so dislikes extremes of sensibility in anything that pertains to so sacred a thing as religion. Ah, dear! Religion, what is it?"

"There's many ways of it ma'am, I do think. 'Tis true religious not to laugh when the lads tickle thy ankles wi' straws during the prayer for Good King George!"

"Tut-tut, how disloyal!"

Just then the raucous voice of one of the itinerant booksellers shouted "Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain-Rod."

"Run, Betty, and inquire the price at once," cried Mrs. Courteen perceiving that this was the cause of the gentlemen's delay. "'Tis evidently a rumour on the best authority about the Day of Judgment."

Presently Betty returned.

"'Tis a book, ma'am."

"I know that, simpleton, how much?"

"Four shillings and sixpence, ma'am, for a little mimsy book not so thick as the magick history of Jack the Giant Killer."

"But what was inside, foolish one?"

"Oh, ’twas full of stars, ma'am."

"'Tis certainly a work on fortune-telling. Pray buy it instantly, here is the money."

Back came Betty with the volume, and presently Mrs. Courteen fainted.

Downstairs ran Betty, and upstairs walked Mr. Thomas and Betty.

"’Twas the book as done it," said the latter vehemently.

The offending volume lay face downwards upon the quilted apricock of Mrs. Courteen's lap, so Thomas picked it up and began to read:

So far he read, but, rubicund though he was, modesty was still able to deepen his colour.

"Yes," said Betty, "pray do 'ee read us some more, Mr. Thomas."

"What Jebusite wrote this book? I will smite him and all his works," replied Thomas, flinging the volume into the fire. Whether the odour of burning leather or the profuse drops of Sal Volatile revived the offended lady I do not know, but she instantly sat up and, in a voice tremulous with anxiety, bade her footman call a chair.

"For," said she, "I must pay a visit of condolence to my Lady Bunbutter, whose propriety has suffered an almost irreparable injury."

She did not stay to change her dress; she passed her suitors still quoting scurrility, one against the other in the wind and rain, without a smile of recognition or sympathy.

Outside my Lady Bunbutter's stood a row of sedan-chairs, and as Mrs. Courteen walked up my Lady Bunbutter's front door-step, the knot of chairmen packed more closely over a copy of Curtain Polls indiscreetly left behind by one of their fares. There was a rustle of pages quickly turned by dirty thumbs, and as Mrs. Courteen was ushered in by my Lady Bunbutter's claret-coloured footman, there followed her upstairs a burst of ribald laughter.

My Lady Bunbutter had, by reason of her superior bulk and wealth, successfully repelled all rival claimants to the throne of dowagership. She reigned supreme; moreover her advice on this gusty forenoon was particularly valuable, inasmuch as she had just shaken off the waters of Bath on account of the publication there of some odious verses, in which her name and her person were treated with intolerably small respect. Therefore it was not surprizing to find her drawing-room the haunt of innumerable widows, old maids and long-established wives. There they sat, supplying asterisks with immense volubleness. As it happened, they had just tittered behind their fans over the odiously vulgar, but undeniably appropriate—yes! the odious fellow was certainly witty—when the subject of their malicious laughter and false blushes entered the room.

With the tact bred of many a Quadrille party, my lady Bunbutter advanced to meet Mrs. Courteen, murmuring, 'poor dear little Miss Kitcat, so spiteful and yet, my dear Mrs. Courteen, since we are all friends, alas! how true!'

Now young Miss Kitcat was still young Miss Kitcat, and simply would not become old maid or dowager, and would allow herself to be ogled by that notorious rake and disreputable—yes! disreputable, card-sharper, Captain Mann.

While the dowagers discussed the situation and vowed that the rogue of an author sadly needed a lesson, Beau Ripple himself, with many an urbane tut-tut was reading Curtain Polls in his tall white drawing-room, where the firelight danced and flickered over the gleaming ivory panels.

"Too bad," said the Beau to himself as he turned the scandalous pages. He did not, however, treat them less carefully because they were scandalous, for to Mr. Ripple a book was always a book, and he paid as much ceremony to the emanations of Grub Street as he would have shown to the copper plates of an elephant folio.

"This is, indeed, too bad," said the Beau, "and yet the rascal has wit. Oh, yes, he certainly has wit, but what an excellent example this volume affords of the superiority of prose over verse. A poetick satirist too often sacrifices his good breeding for the sake of the rhymes. Now I should never have said that. No, no, that is too bad, and this—good G——! this is unpardonable!"

The Great little Man jumped up as red as one of the big chintz roses that bloomed so prodigally all over his winged chair.

The King of Fashion looked very small as he stood in the middle of an Aubusson rug, yet I think he never looked more truly a monarch than at this moment. Unfortunately there was nobody to see him as he stood in his little world of mirrours and engravings.

And what had upset his equanimity? Certainly not the following lines:

Whatever the Curtain Rod thought of the subjects, to the Monarch he was always complimental.

"Intolerable! unpardonable!" cried the Beau, tapping his snuff-box so fiercely that some of the powder was spilled over the grey Angora cat which was purring against his gold-clocked stockings in the heart of a faded Aubusson rose. Octavia (the cat) sneezed assent. What had upset his equanimity? You shall take a short journey to find out, for I perceive a break in the weather and sweet April is in the West.

We will walk just so far as Curtain Garden, but, pray, do not turn into the Maze where the paths are atrociously damp. Alas, the rain is beginning again, but at the end of that long alley is a summer house, the abode of many Rococo Dryads, although 'tis haunted at present by amorous mortals, for I caught the glint of a buckle and a shimmer of chestnut ringlets.

It does not require King Œdipus to guess that those eyes which stare so into the heavens are the blue eyes of Phyllida, while any one would recognize in that smooth voice the careful enunciation of Mr. Francis Vernon.

He, like every one else that forenoon, was reading Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain Rod. Perchance the following lines were they that lately enraged Mr. Horace Ripple:

"Those are pretty stanzas for a lover to read," said Vernon, who, to do him justice, did not seem very greatly perturbed by the insult.

"Oh, Amor," said poor Phyllida, "they can't truly be intended for me!"

"For whom else?"

"But who would write such cruel words of a young woman?"

"That puppy, Lovely."

"Mr. Lovely! Oh! no, he's a gentleman and a man of family and a man of taste and a friend of Beau Ripple."

"He may be all this and more," declared Vernon, "but he wrote this book."

"I don't believe it."

"He did, I say, for he informed me so himself—at least he as good as informed me!"

"Amor! you must have been mistook."

"On my life, not at all. He owes me near five hundred guineas, and when I hinted that the expense of inland Spas tells upon a gentleman's resources, begged my pardon, swore he had a literary project on hand, and promised me a hundred guineas on Lady Day. That was the day before yesterday."

"A gamester!" said Miss Phyllida, who, with the injustice of her age and sex, neglected to see that her lover was as much to blame in this particular as Lovely.

"Ay! a gamester," said Vernon with fervid indignation.

"And for the sake of a hundred guineas he was ready to cheapen the honour of a maid?"

"My angel forgets the Chinese Masquerade. Mr. Lovely was piqued by her obvious weakness for a less fashionable, less conspicuous gentleman."

"Oh, I will never forgive him. He has ruined me."

"Nay, come, come, 'tis not so bad as that. Amor will never desert his Phyllida."

"I'm ruined, I'm ruined," she sobbed. "I shall never dare go to visit my cousin Barbara, who is as prim and proper as——" Nothing was prim enough for the comparison. "And she has the most delicious hot buns you ever tasted, and the dearest spaniel and the most beautiful pugdog. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! how all the neighbours will laugh, and old Rumble the carrier will be telling tales about me in every kitchen in the county, and 'tis all your fault."

"My fault?"

"Yes, yours, for asking me to come and meet you and making love, while all the while there was somebody peeping over the hedges. I'll never forgive you, never, never!—--"

"Dearest life, we can put a stop to scandal by being wed immediately. Listen! I'll have a post-chaise ready at dawn, and post-boys in scarlet, and lodgings with a balcony and a goldfinch singing in a cage. My Phyllida, will you come?"

"Oh! I dare not, I dare not—not yet, oh lud, oh lud! how shall I look the world in the face?"

Vernon thought for a moment.

"Where are your pearls kept?"

"In my mamma's trunkmail, but Betty could give me the key—and sometimes in her jewel case."

"On the thirtieth," said Vernon, "there will be a ball at Daish's Rooms, next to the Blue Boar where I lodge. You will surely be there, 'tis my lady Bunbutter's rout."

"Yes, we shall be there," said Phyllida.

"At two o'clock in the morning, I will have a post-chaise waiting by St. Simon's Church corner, opposite Leonard's toy shop. Would you have the courage to slip out, my dearest heart, my Phyllida?"

"Oh, no, I could not travel by night."

"'Twould be safer," urged Vernon.

"No, no, I could not."

"Then for your sake, I'll take the risque and have the post-chaise in the same place at three o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Promise you will come."

"No, no, I shall never be brave enough, and I must go for I hear voices, and I must never be seen with you again. Good-bye, good-bye," and before Vernon could stop her, Phyllida was running down the poplar alley to escape from Curtain Garden.

Our villain began to wonder whether she would elope after all. If she were shy, he might secure the necklace at any rate. With slow steps, his mind full of silken pearls, Mr. Vernon went slowly homewards. Half way down the High Street, he passed a narrow street known as Blood Passage from the vicinity of a large slaughter-house. He hesitated; made up his mind, and, turning down it, came to a crooked house over a low tumble-down doorway. He knocked fastidiously with the amber knob of his cane. A slatternly woman, whose last night's rouge was streaked with the matutinal ashes, opened the door.

"Does Mr. Maggs live here?"

"Come in," said the frowsy light o' love.