"Well! But let us first brew another tumbler, and then we can begin our stories. But look here; honor bright, Albert mine; honor bright, and no prattling!"
"One crow does not peck at another!" said Albert.
Mr. Toby smilingly nodded his venerable head, mixed the grog with artistic care, unbuttoned his black satin waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, and said,
"I have not always lived in Grunwald; and I have not always been sexton at St. Bridget's."
"I know! The capital has the undisputed honor to call you her own; and whose sexton you were before you became St. Bridget's own sexton, the gentleman in black will probably know best."
Toby Goodheart seemed to take this as a high compliment. He smiled contentedly, and sipped his grog with evident delight.
"Don't be coarse, Albert mine, or I cannot go on," he said. "My father was a servant; and I was, from tender infancy, intended for the same profession. You may judge what remarkable talents I had for my vocation, when I tell you that I had had twenty masters before I was twenty years old. About this time it occurred to me how much more pleasant it would be to be my own master; and as I had laid by a considerable little sum during the time of my service,"--here the honorable Toby smiled with his left eye and the left corner of his mouth--"I had capital enough to open a house of entertainment."
"Nice entertainment, I dare say, you gave," said Albert.
"Yes, indeed!" replied Toby, adding another lump of sugar to his grog; "at least the fair sex was abundantly represented in my nice little business. I made it a principle to have only female waiters, and so the 'Cafe Goodheart' was well frequented. I had at least six or eight young ladies to do the honors of my house."
Albert Timm seemed to listen to these statistics with much delight. He leaned back in the corner of the sofa and broke out into a loud laugh, while the honorable Toby again only smiled--but this time, for the sake of change, with the right eye and the right corner of the mouth.