"There is no sich manuscript here," she said, tartly, and her thoughts reverted to the Red Book.
"Hadn't you better wait to know what kind of manuscript it was, before making such a flat denial?" coolly responded Godiva. "But now let's talk of this boy! What's the amount of his entanglements? How's the girl?"
"She is well," said the Madam, emphatically.
"Well!" croaked Corkins from the background.
"And this fellow from Philadelphia—was he really such a desperate creature?" asked Godiva.
"A devil incarnate," replied the Madam.
"What's that?" cried Herman, with a start, as the sound of a hell once more rang through the mansion.
"It's the bell of the door in the alley. Run, Corkins! It's Dirk and Slung. Bring 'em up,—'put', I say!"
Corkins "put," and the party waited for his return in evident anxiety. It was not long before there was the tramp of heavy steps in the passage, and two men, roughly clad—one, short, thick-set, and bow-legged, the other, tall and bony—stumbled into the room, bringing with them the perfume of very bad liquor.
"Where's de ole woman?" cried Dirk; "What in de thunder de yer have candles a-burnin' in daylight for—s-a-y?"