with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife.

She came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers.

They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord’s wife, opening the little half-door