at his bank every day, rides off to the City as punctual as the clock strikes ten. Lor', by the bye, Mr. Volpes," says Mrs. Moper suddenly, "you don't happen to know of a tempory tiger, do you?"
"A temporary tiger!" Mr. Volpes looks considerably puzzled.
"Why, you see, the Count's tiger, as wasn't higher than the kitchen table I do believe, broke his arm the other day. He was a-hangin' on to the strap behind the cab, a-standin' upon nothing, as them boys will, when the vehicle was knocked agen an omnibus, and his arm bein' wrenched sudden out of the strap, snapped like a bit of sealing-wax; and they've took him to the hospital, and he's to come back as soon as ever he's well; for he's a deal thought on, bein' a'most the smallest tiger at the West-end. So, if you happen to know of a boy as would come temporary, we should be obliged by your sending him round."
"Did he know of a boy as would come temporary?" Mr. Budgen's young man appeared so much impressed by this question, that for a minute or two he was quite incapable of answering it. He leaned his elbows on the kitchen table, with his face buried in his hands and his fingers twisted in his flaxen hair, and when he looked up there was, strange to say, a warm flush over his pale complexion, and something like a triumphant sparkle in his dark brown eyes.
"Nothing could fall out better," he said; "nothing, nothing!"
"What, the poor lad breaking his arm?" asked Mrs. Moper, in a tone of surprise.
"No, no, not that," said Mr. Budgen's young man, just a little confused; "what I mean is, that I know the very boy to suit you—the very boy, the very boy of all others to undertake the business. Ah," he continued in a lower voice, "and to go through with it, too, to the end."
"Why, as to the business," replied Mrs. Moper, "it ain't overmuch, hangin' on behind, and lookin' knowin', and givin' other tigers as good as they bring, when waitin' outside the Calting or the Anthinium; which tigers as is used to the highest names in the peerage familiar as their meat and drink, will go on contemptuous about our fambly, callin' the bank 'the shop,' and a-askin', till they got our lad's blood up (which he had had his guinea lessons from the May Fair Mawler, and were better left alone), when the smash was a-comin', or whether we meant to give out three-and-sixpence in the pound like a honest house, or do the shabby thing and clear ourselves by a compensation with our creditors of fourpence-farthing? Ah," continued Mrs. Moper, gravely, "many's the time that child have come home with his nose as big as the 'ead of a six-week old baby, and no eyes at all as any one could discover, which he'd been
