as fast as it can, and she may set sail as it is before I can reach her; so, if you want to earn a sovereign, come and see if you can help me in arousing a waterman and getting off to her?"
"Oh, you are off to America, are you?" said the Smasher, thoughtfully. "Blow that 'ere wine of Hemmar's! I ought to know the cut of your figure-head. I've seen you before—I've seen you somewheres before, though where that somewheres was, spiflicate me if I can call to mind! Come, lend a hand with this 'ere friend o' mine, and I'll lend you a hand with the boatman."
"D—n your friend," said the other, savagely; "let me pass, will you, you drunken fool?"
This was quite enough for the Smasher, who was just in that agreeable frame of mind attendant on the consumption of strong waters, in which the jaundiced eye is apt to behold an enemy even in a friend, and the equally prejudiced ear is ready to hear an insult in the most civil address.
"Come on, then," said he; and putting himself in a scientific attitude, he dodged from side to side two or three times, as if setting to his partner in a quadrille, and then, with a movement rapid as lightning, went in with his left fist, and planted a species of postman's knock exactly between the eyes of the stranger, who fell to the ground as an ox falls under the hand of an accomplished butcher.
It is needless to say that, in falling, his hat fell off, and as he lay senseless on the pavement, the moonlight on his face revealed every feature as distinctly as in the broadest day.
The Smasher knelt down by his side, looked at him attentively for a few moments, and then gave a long, low whistle.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "perhaps I couldn't have done a better thing than this 'ere I've done promiscuous. He won't go to America by that vessel at any rate; so if I telegraph to the Cherokees, maybe they will be glad to hear what he's up to down here. Come along," continued the sobered Smasher, hauling up Mr. De Clifford by the collar, as ruthlessly as if he had been a sack of coal; "I think I hear the footsteps of a Bobby a-coming this way, so we'd better make ourselves scarce before we're asked any questions."
"If," said the distinguished Brandolph, still shedding tears, "if the town of Liverpool was conducted after the manner of the Republic of Plato, there wouldn't be any policemen. But, as I said before, we have retrograded. Take care of the posts," he added plaintively. "It is marvellous the effect a few glasses of light wine have upon some people's legs; while others, on the contrary———" here he slid again to the ground, and this time eluded all the Smasher's endeavours to pick him up.
"You had better let me be," he murmured. "It is hard, but it is clean and comfortable. Bring me my boots and hot water
