Two bulls are as likely to be amicable on one pasture as two tinkers on the same beat. There is some surly chaffing. Lavengro tries to conciliate the big girl by telling her that she is like Ingeborg, Queen of Norway--which must have been an exceedingly intelligible compliment--and then by pouring into her ear the following Orphean strain:-- "As I was jawing to the gav yeck divvers, I met on the drom miro Rommany chi." The minstrel's reward was a thundering douse on the chops. Then stood forth the Tinman in his ire, and a battle-royal commenced. Belle--for such was the name of the big girl--was, however, an admirer of fair play, and though she had been the first to strike him, volunteered her services as Lavengro's second--Grey Moll doing the needful for her spouse. After several sharp rounds, the Tinman misses a blow, smashes himself against a tree, and goes down like a ninepin, insensible to the call of time. There is honour among the tinkers, as there was law among the cutters. The defeated warrior retires with his mort, leaving Belle, whom he now abandons, to the protection of the victorious Lavengro. And what follows? No sniggering, young gentleman, if you please. You never were more entirely mistaken in your life. It is true that Belle--or to give her her proper title--Miss Isopel Berners, was a young lady of doubtful origin, who had been educated in the workhouse. Why not? The only three noble names in the county were to be found there. "Mine was one, the other two were Devereux and Bohun." And she was independent as she was strong. Being apprenticed out at fourteen years of age to a small farmer and his wife, she knocked down her mistress for ill-using her, and, at sixteen, knocked down her master for taking improper liberties. Shortly afterwards, having taken service with a lady who travelled the country selling silks and linen, Belle thrashed two sailors who wanted to rob the cart; so that, upon the whole, she was by no means the Neæra with the tangles of whose hair it was safe to play, unless with her entire consent. Therefore the twain tarried in all amity and honour together in the dingle, making themselves, upon the whole, remarkably comfortable. An occasional visit to an alehouse, where politics and polemics were discussed, relieved Lavengro from the vapours; and of an evening in the dingle, he occupied himself by adding to the stock of accomplishments possessed by Miss Isopel Berners. The reader will naturally be anxious to know the nature of the lessons. Did he teach her ciphering, or French, or cross-stitch, or cooking according to the method of Mrs Glass, or philosophy, divinity, or calisthenics? Nothing of the kind. Lavengro gave her "LESSONS IN ARMENIAN!"