"Though when I left her Ladyship the Countess of Crowmarsh," said Miss Ling, "after fourteen years spent in the Castle nurseries, gradually rising from nursery-maid to under-nurse, and then becoming what his Lordship was pleased to call Head of the Bottle Department—a very humorous nobleman his Lordship was at times!—I had forgotten all I ever knew of my dear mother's kitchen-teaching—she was a cook, Mr. Breagh, who had lived with the first in the land! and when—being pensioned by the family—I decided to risk the step of taking this house, and letting it out to lodgers, preferring single gentlemen—I was forced to engage a widowed person to prepare their meals at first."
"I remember her," said Mr. Knewbit, with his mouth full of poached eggs and bacon. "She could under-boil a pertater and calcine a chop with any elderly female I ever yet come across. Here, pussy! if you ain't too proud for rasher-rinds? And not you!" He leaned to the hearth—he was sitting with his back to the glowing range, and dropped his offering under the nose of the ginger kitten, which, having already disposed of a saucer of bread-and-milk, instantly grabbed.
"To-morrow," said P. C. Breagh, looking up from his rapidly-emptying plate with the smile which Miss Ling had already decided was pleasant, "I hope to prove to you that, like the kitten, I am not too proud for anything that comes in my way."
"Presently, presently!" said Mr. Knewbit sharply. "Everything in good time! ... I don't like to be hurried. And—what did you say was the property you'd left with the—the Greedy Guts who runs that Euston Road hotel?"
"There were three boxes of books—chiefly works on medicine and surgery." Carolan reflected a moment, stirring his coffee with one of Miss Ling's Britannia-metal spoons. "And two trunks, with clothes and all that. Things I valued. My student's cap and schläger, and the silver-mounted beer-horn the English Colony gave me, and—a Crucifix that was my mother's." The speaker blinked and spoke a little huskily: "Used to hang over my bed when I was a little chap in frocks."
"Don't be cast down. Some wave o' luck may wash your property ashore at your feet one of these days. What I will say is—I wish I had the setting-up of that story for the paper!" said Mr. Knewbit, handing in his plate for fried bread. "Supposing you,"—he jerked his eyes at Carolan—"had any talent in the literary line, it 'ud be worth your while to throw off a quarter-col. of descriptive stuff."
"Relating to my experiences in that fellow's bug-ridden lodging-house? Why, I don't doubt I could—after a fashion," said P. C. Breagh.
"After a fashion won't do. Write it the best you know! Sit down at the kitchen-table here, when Maria's gone to her prayer-meeting and I've got my pipe and Solomon to keep me quiet,—and blacken half a quire o' paper—there's plenty in the drawer there!—with the story—told short, crisp and plain, and with a dash o' humor, and within four hundred words. It would space out lovely!" said Mr. Knewbit, arranging imaginary head-lines on the clean coarse tablecloth.
LONDON SHARK
VICTIMIZES STUDENT!
HE GRABS HIS GOODS
AND LETS HIM GO!
"Ah, dear me! If I had had your education. But it's too late to alter that. What were you saying, Maria?"