in with, and put it across a counter in a poor boy's hand. Oh! oh! oh!"

"Dick," said Alfred, "if you blubber, I'll give you a hiding. You have
stumbled on a passage you can't construe. Well, who has not? But we don't
shed the briny about it. Here, let me have a go at it."

"Ah! I've heard you are a scholard," said Dick, "but you won't make out
this; there's some new preparation of mercury, and there's musk, and
there's horehound, and there's a neutral salt: and dal his old head that
wrote it!"

"Hold your jaw, and listen, while I construe it to you. _'Die Mercurii,_
on Wednesday--_decima hora vespertina,_ at ten o'clock at night--_eat in
Musca:'_ what does that mean? _'Eat in Musca?'_ I see! this is modern
Latin with a vengeance. 'Let him go in a fly to the Towns-hall. _Saltet,_
let him jump--_cum tredecim caniculis,_ with thirteen little
dogs--_praesertim meo,_ especially with my little dog.' Dicky, this
prescription emanates from Bedlam direct. _'Domum reddita'_--hallo! it is
a woman, then. 'Let _her_ go in a fly to the--Town-hall, eh?' 'Let _her_
jump, no, dance, with thirteen whelps, especially mine.' Ha! ha! ha! And
who is the woman that is to do all this I wonder?"

"Woman, indeed!" said a treble at the door! "no more than I am; it's for
a young lady. O jiminy!"

This polite ejaculation was drawn out by the speaker's sudden recognition
of Alfred, who had raised his head at her remonstrance, and now started
in his turn; for it was the black-eyed servant of Albion Villa. They
looked at one another in expressive silence.