"Distinctly not. BLANK was a noble-hearted, chivalrous, merry, gladsome, gallant young fellow. He was the soul of honour. Why," he added, with deep emotion, "I have left as much as fourpence in coppers on a mantel-piece alone with him, and on my return nave found every halfpenny of the money untouched!"
"Then do you not think he pushed the old man into the sausage-machine?"
"If he did, it must have been either accidentally, or to win a wager, or perhaps as practical joke. That he would do anything open to censure at the hands of the severest moralist, is absolutely incredible. Why, he is a Loamshire man!"
"So I have heard; and, now, Mr. CHOSE, as I see that you have finished your breakfast, I will put to you a purely personal question. Is it true that you poisoned your grandmother, drowned your uncle, stifled your niece, and hanged your brother-in-law?"
The Arctic Explorer pulled angrily at his moustache, and said something about the reports to which I referred being exaggerated.
"And may I take it that you have never been in gaol for picking pockets? And when it is said that you were turned out of a Club for cheating at cards—"
But at this point I was assisted to take my leave with so much abruptness, that I was forced to leave my last question but partially formulated. On finding myself once more in the street, I noticed that I was reclining in the gutter, bare-headed. A little later, however, my hat was thrown after me.
PICTORIAL NOTE TO HAMLET.
