As the fog swallowed them, someone took me by the ear.
"Hullo, young gentlemen," said His Excellency, pinching me and reaching out a hand for Hartnoll, who evaded him, "it seems to me you deserve a thrashing apiece for yesterday and a guinea apiece for to-day. Will you take both, or shall we call it quits?"
Well, we called it quits for the time. But twenty years later, happening upon me at Buckingham Palace at one of King William's last levees, he shook hands and informed me that the balance sheet at the time had been wrongly struck: for I had provided him with a story which had served him faithfully through half his distinguished career. A week later a dray rumbled up to the door of my lodgings in Jermyn Street, and two stout men delivered from it a hogshead of the sherry you are now drinking. He had inquired for Hartnoll's address, but Hartnoll, poor lad, had lain for fifteen years in the British burial-ground at Port Royal.
THE BLACK JOKE.
A REPORTED TALE OF TWO SMUGGLERS.
I.
My mother's grandfather, Dan'l Leggo, was the piousest man that ever went smuggling, and one of the peaceablest, and scrupulous to an extent you wouldn't believe. He learnt his business among the Cove boys at Porthleah—or Prussia Cove as it came to be called, after John Carter, the head of the gang, that was nicknamed the King o' Prussia. Dan'l was John Carter's own sister's son, trained under his eye; and when the Carters retired he took over the business in partnership with young Phoby Geen, a nephew by marriage to Bessie Bussow that still kept the Kiddlywink at Porthleah, and had laid by a stockingful of money.
These two, Dan'l Leggo and Phoby Geen (which was short for Deiphobus), lived together and worked the business for five years in boundless harmony; until, as such things happen, they both fell in love with one maid, which brought out the differences in their natures to a surprising degree, converting Dan'l into an Early Christian for all to behold, while Phoby turned to envy and spite, and to a disgraceful meanness of spirit. The reason of this to some extent was that the girl—Amelia Sanders by name—couldn't abide him because of the colour of his hair and his splay feet: yet I believe she would have married him (her father being a boat-builder in a small way at Porthleven, and beholden to the Cove for most of his custom) if Dan'l hadn't come along first and cast eyes on her; whereby she clave to Dan'l and liked him better and better as time brought out the beautiful little odds-and-ends of his character; and when Phoby made up, she took and told him, in all the boldness of affection, to make himself scarce, for she wouldn't have him—no, not if he was the last man in the world and she the last woman. I daresay she overstated the case, as women will. But what appeared marvellous to all observers was that the girl had no particular good looks that wouldn't have passed anywhere in a crowd, and yet these two had singled her out for their addresses.
Dan'l (that had been the first in the field) pointed this out to his partner in a very reasonable spirit; but somehow it didn't take effect. "If she's as plain-featured as you allow," said Phoby, "why the dickens can't you stand aside?"