'Do you like the furniture of this room?' abruptly inquired the stranger.

'Yes,' replied O'Hara; 'rich, not gaudy, as Shakespeare says.'

'See any want?'

'Not particularly.'

'Ah! there is one piece of furniture particularly wanting,' said the stranger, with the manner of a man who endeavours to master bashfulness by an exaggerated show of good-humoured, rude self-possession.

'What's that?'

'A wife!'

O'Hara turned his eyes from the pipe to Friezecoat, and Friezecoat—the gruff, blunt-mannered, muscularly-educated Friezecoat—was positively embarrassed, blushed like a callow boy.

'Were you ever in love?' said Friezecoat, probably with a sly view of diverting the enemy's attention by a movement in flank.

The answer was an involuntary sigh.