"Ho! there, my rum-bluffer; send me a nipperkin of white velvet."

"Make it two," said a woman, seating herself on a skinner's knee; "and if Jim don't post the cole, I will."

"Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort. May I dance at my death, and grin in a glass-case, if I didn't think you had been put to bed with a shovel—you've been so long away from the cock and hen club."

"No, Jim, I only piked into Deuceaville with a dimber-damber, who couldn't pad the hoof for a single darkman's without his bloss to keep him from getting pogy."

"Oh! I'm fly. You mean Jumping Jack, who was done last week, for heaving a peter from a drag. But you talked of padding the hoof. Why, sure, Jack had a rattler and a prad?"

"Yes, but they were spotted by the harmans, and so we walked Spanish."

"Was he nabbed on the scent?"

"No, his pal grew leaky and cackled."

"Well, Bell, here's the bingo—sluice your gob! But who was the cull that peached?"

"A slubber de gullion named Harry Long, who wanted to pass for an out-and-out cracksman, though he was merely a diver."

"Whew! I know the kiddy like a copper, and saved him once from lumping the lighter by putting in buck. Why, he scarcely knows a jimmy from a round robin, and Jack deserved the tippet for making a lay with him, as all coves of his kidney blow the gab. But how did you hare it to Romeville, Bell, for I suppose the jets cleaned you out?"

"I kidded a swell in a snoozing-ken, and shook him of his dummy and thimble."

"Ah! Bell! you were always the blowen for a rum bing."

"It was no great quids, Jim—only six flimseys and three beans. But I'm flush of the balsam now, for I dance balum-rancum for the bens."

Bell here produced a rum bing, which at once made her popular, and the nucleus of a host of admirers; for, as it respects money, it is with rogues and their doxeys as with all the rest of the world. Bell truly justified the adage, that "What's got over the devil's back, goes under the devil's belly;" for she gave a general order to the rum-bluffer, to supply all the lush that was called for by the company, at her expense; and thereon there was a demand for max, oil of barby, red tape, blue ruin, white velvet, and so forth, that kept all the tapsters in the establishment in a state of restless activity for the next half-hour.

"Bell, you're benish to-night," exclaimed Knapp, who probably had a design on the purse, which the course of events somewhat interfered with.

"Stubble your red rag," answered a good-looking young fellow. "Bell had better flash her dibs than let you bubble her out of them."

"Why, you joskin," retorted Jim; "if you don't stow your whids I'll put your bowsprit in parenthesis. Ogle the cove, Bell—he wants to pass for a snafler in his belcher tye, though he never bid higher than a wipe in an upper benjamin."

"I may bid as high as your pintle, and make you squint like a bag of nails," replied the intruder, "though you rub us to whit for it."

"Oh! it's all plummy," said Knapp, "so you may cly your daddles. But come, Bell, let us track the dancers and rumble the flats, for I'm tired of pattering flash and lushing jackey."

"Bar that toss, Jim," said Bell, "for you're as fly at the pictures, as the devil at lying, and I would rather be a knight of Alsatia than a plucked pigeon."

This resolution produced a round of applause, which was followed by another round of liquor—promptly paid for by the lady of the rum bing, whose generosity now so far extended itself, that she withdrew from Mr. Knapp's protection, and, even without waiting to be asked, deposited herself in the lap of him of the belcher tye. She had scarcely asserted her title to the premises, before it was disputed by another fair damsel, who emphatically declared, that if the tenant in possession did not immediately leave that, she would astonish her mazzard with the contents of a "nipperkin of thunder and lightning."

"If you do," returned Bell, "I will fix my diggers in your dial-plate, and turn it up with red."

"Mizzle, you punk."

"Well said," Madame Rhan, "but the bishop might as soon call the parson pig-stealer."

"You lie, you bat. I couple with no cove but my own. But say, Harry, will you suffer yourself to be made a two-legged stool of by a flag-about?"

"Oh! button your bone-box, Peg," replied Harry. "Bell's a rum blowen, and you only patter because your ogle's as green as the Emerald Isle."

"It's not half so green as yourself, halter-mad Harry," retorted Peg; "for you know if I wished to nose I could have you twisted—not to mention any thing about the cull that was hushed for his reader."

On a bench, close by the last speaker, was seated Hitch, a police officer, who appeared to be quite at home with the company, and to occasion no alarm or misgivings; but the moment Peg mentioned the circumstance of "the cull that was hushed for his reader," he rose from the table, drew forth a pair of handcuffs, and tapping Knapp's rival on the shoulder, playfully whispered:

"Harry, my lad, the game's up; hold out your wrists for the ruffles."

"There they are, Mr. Hitch, though I suppose you'll be asking me in a week or so to hold out my gorge for a Tyburn tippet."

These proceedings naturally drew a crowd around the parties concerned; but though all sympathized with the prisoner, and the minion of the law was without any assistant, yet there was not the slightest attempt at a rescue, or even the least disposition manifested by the captive of a desire to escape.

"Only nine months on the pad, and to be up for scragging! What a pity!"

"He's too young—he hasn't had his lark half out; and it's like making a man pay a debt he don't owe, to twist him before he has gone the rounds."

"He'll die game for all that! Poor fellow! he takes it like a glass of egg-nog."

"Ah! Mr. Hitch! isn't it out of order, and he so green? You ought to give a chap a year to ripen for the hemp."

"Do, Hitch, give him a little longer rope, and take him in his regular turn. You're sure to have him, you know, when his time's up."

"O! stubble it, George. Hitch can't, or he would; for he never hurries a cove when it's left to himself."

"That's a fact, my kiddies," exclaimed the officer, who seemed pleased at the compliment; "but the commissioner wants Harry, and so, of course, I must pull him."

"I'm satisfied, whatever comes of it," added the prisoner.

Bell whispered in the officer's ear: "Couldn't you let him pike if I come down with a thimble and ten beans?"

"A watch and ten guineas?"

"Of course."

"I might if you paid on delivery."

"Ready's the word."

"Warehawk, then, and follow."

Hitch departed with his prisoner, followed by Bell; but in a few minutes the latter returned and whispered to Knapp:

"Your client has slipped the darbys, and his name's Walker. Here's a flimsy, to lay low and bottle your gab."

The flash-panny was now in the full tide of successful operation—two thirds of its patrons being about three sheets in the wind, and none of them perfectly sober. In one corner there was a mill, wherein the combatants hit the wall more frequently than they hit each other. In another, two blowens were clapper-clawing each other for a bob-cull, who was seconding both parties, and declaring that the winner should have him. Here a snafler lay snoring on a bench, while a buzman, just half a degree less intoxicated, was endeavoring to pick his pocket. There, three cracksmen were engaged in a remarkably animated dispute on the state of the country. Under almost every table might be seen a son or daughter of Adam, luxuriating in the realms of Nod. But the bulk of the company were amusing themselves in a dance; for one of the fixtures of the establishment was an Irish piper, who, by the way, was a little fortune to it, for every one treated Pat.

The dance was yet in its fullest vigor, when Hitch returned and called Bell to one of the tables.

"Bell", said he, "I have been looking for you more eagerly than any of your lovers for several months past—though I found you at length by an accident. What have you done with the bloke?"

"Me, Hitch? Why, I have neither seen or heard of him."

"Come, Bell, it's no use our wasting time in small talk. You were with him the last night he was heard of."

"Not I, faith, Hitch. Bring me the book, and I'll swear No to that."

"How then came you by his super?"

"Blast the super! for I fear it has got me into a muss."

"If I take you to Newgate for it, Bell, it will be apt to get you into a halter."

"Well, then it will save me from the Bay fever, or dying in the gutter; for all such as I am must draw one of the three chances."

"Make me your confessor, Bell, without any equivocation or drawback, and I may stand between you and Jack Ketch."

"But what about the stone-jug?"

"That depends upon circumstances. Is the bloke living or dead?"

"Living, for all I know to the contrary."

"You know all about him, Bell."

"If I do, may I cly the jerk at a drag; be trussed in a Kilmainham garter, and fall to the surgeons."

"Well, it may be so," said Hitch, musing; "for if you knew all, half the world would have known it before this time. However, Bell, you can supply a link or two in the chain of evidence, so give me the particulars; and remember, if you tell me a lie I will smell it as it comes out of your mouth."

Just then the guests of the Crooked Billet were interrupted by an uproar in the street.

"Some swells on a lark," exclaimed lawyer Knapp; "dub the jigger and let them in."

And Jim was right; for on the jigger being dubbed, in staggered four bloods, who were sufficiently top-heavy to be ready for any thing. Two of the newcomers, who prided themselves on "knowing the ropes," while their companions were green from the fens. Immediately on their entrance, this hopeful addition to the convivial party already assembled, began to exhibit their "tip-top education" by squaring off for a fight, pattering flash, and ordering in lush. In fact, they out-heroded Herod, for they proved themselves to be yet greater blackguards than the poor rogues whom they were so emulous to imitate. And yet they were "gentlemen," who would have been shocked at the touch of a mechanic, though they gloried in doing things up nutty, like pickpockets and highwaymen. But they were not such knowing kiddies after all, though they considered themselves bang up to the mark; for suddenly one of them cried out that he had lost his purse; and then they all discovered that they had lost every thing they had which was fairly removable. Thereupon there was a devil of a muss, generally, with vociferous calling for the police. The four fellows who had the four worst hats, exchanged them sans ceremonie with the strangers, while a couple of fogle-hunters tore off the skirts of their coats to mend their breeches. To finish their spree, by and by in rushed the police, and, on the charge of an elderly, responsible-looking cracksman, hurried the bloods off to the nearest station-house. What rascally things are policemen! Alas! and alack! just about as rascally as all the rest of the world.