After a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the edge of the

breakfast table in an easy attitude displaying the drapery of her

stocking and an ex-white satin shoe, which was down at heel), Colonel

Crawley called for pens and ink, and paper, and being asked how many

sheets, chose one which was brought to him between Miss Moss's own

finger and thumb. Many a sheet had that dark-eyed damsel brought in;

many a poor fellow had scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty

and paced up and down that awful room until his messenger brought back

the reply. Poor men always use messengers instead of the post. Who

has not had their letters, with the wafers wet, and the announcement

that a person is waiting in the hall?

Now on the score of his application, Rawdon had not many misgivings.

DEAR BECKY, (Rawdon wrote) I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL. Don't be FRIGHTENED if I don't bring you in

your COFFY. Last night as I was coming home smoaking, I met with an

ACCADENT. I was NABBED by Moss of Cursitor Street--from whose GILT AND

SPLENDID PARLER I write this--the same that had me this time two years.

Miss Moss brought in my tea--she is grown very FAT, and, as usual, had

her STOCKENS DOWN AT HEAL.

It's Nathan's business--a hundred-and-fifty--with costs,

hundred-and-seventy. Please send me my desk and some CLOTHS--I'm in

pumps and a white tye (something like Miss M's stockings)--I've seventy

in it. And as soon as you get this, Drive to Nathan's--offer him

seventy-five down, and ASK HIM TO RENEW--say I'll take wine--we may as

well have some dinner sherry; but not PICTURS, they're too dear.

If he won't stand it. Take my ticker and such of your things as you

can SPARE, and send them to Balls--we must, of coarse, have the sum

to-night. It won't do to let it stand over, as to-morrow's Sunday; the

beds here are not very CLEAN, and there may be other things out against

me--I'm glad it an't Rawdon's Saturday for coming home. God bless you.

Yours in haste, R. C. P.S. Make haste and come.

This letter, sealed with a wafer, was dispatched by one of the

messengers who are always hanging about Mr. Moss's establishment, and

Rawdon, having seen him depart, went out in the court-yard and smoked

his cigar with a tolerably easy mind--in spite of the bars

overhead--for Mr. Moss's court-yard is railed in like a cage, lest the

gentlemen who are boarding with him should take a fancy to escape from

his hospitality.

Three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time required, before

Becky should arrive and open his prison doors, and he passed these

pretty cheerfully in smoking, in reading the paper, and in the

coffee-room with an acquaintance, Captain Walker, who happened to be

there, and with whom he cut for sixpences for some hours, with pretty

equal luck on either side.




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