'You can have what I leave,' said Vance. 'You're just beginning to

pay your score, my daisy; I owe you one-pound-ten; don't you rouse the

British lion!' There was something indescribably menacing in the face

and voice of the Great Vance as he uttered these words, at which the

soul of Morris withered. 'There!' resumed the feaster, 'give us a glass

of the fizz to start with. Gravy soup! And I thought I didn't like gravy

soup! Do you know how I got here?' he asked, with another explosion of

wrath.

'No, Johnny; how could I?' said the obsequious Morris.

I walked on my ten toes!' cried John; 'tramped the whole way from

Browndean; and begged! I would like to see you beg. It's not so easy

as you might suppose. I played it on being a shipwrecked mariner from

Blyth; I don't know where Blyth is, do you? but I thought it sounded

natural. I begged from a little beast of a schoolboy, and he forked out

a bit of twine, and asked me to make a clove hitch; I did, too, I know I

did, but he said it wasn't, he said it was a granny's knot, and I was a

what-d'ye-call-'em, and he would give me in charge. Then I begged from

a naval officer--he never bothered me with knots, but he only gave me

a tract; there's a nice account of the British navy!--and then from a

widow woman that sold lollipops, and I got a hunch of bread from her.

Another party I fell in with said you could generally always get bread;

and the thing to do was to break a plateglass window and get into gaol;

seemed rather a brilliant scheme. Pass the beef.'

251

The Wrong Box