"Be you a father? a father of a family, Mr. Stubmore?" said Sharp, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, swelling out his stomach, and pursing up his lips with great solemnity. "Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells you I can't do without that 'ere lad. Every man to himself." "Oho!" thought Sharp, "I must change the tack." "Mr. Stubmore," said he, taking a stool, "you speaks like a sensible man. No one can reasonably go for to ask a gentleman to go for to inconvenience hisself. But what do you know of that 'ere youngster. Had you a carakter with him?" "What's that to you?" "Why, it's more to yourself, Mr. Stubmore; he is but a lad, and if he goes back to his friends they may take care of him, but he got into a bad set afore he come here. Do you know a good-looking chap with whiskers, who talks of his pheaton, and was riding last night on a brown mare?" "Y--e--s!" said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, "and I knows the mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!" "Did he pay you for her?" "Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts." "And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!" Here Mr. Sharp closed the orbs he had invoked, and whistled with that self-hugging delight which men invariably feel when another man is taken in. Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous. "Why, what now;--you don't think I'm done? I did not let him have the mare till I went to the hotel,--found he was cutting a great dash there, a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the devil!" "O Lord!--O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?" "Why, here's the cheque--George Frederick de--de Burgh Smith." "Put it in your pipe, my man,--put it in your pipe--not worth a d---!" "And who the deuce are you, sir?" bawled out Mr. Stubmore, in an equal rage both with himself and his guest. "I, sir," said the visitor, rising with great dignity,--"I, sir, am of the great Bow Street Office, and my name is John Sharp!" Mr. Stubmore nearly fell off his stool, his eyes rolled in his head, and his teeth chattered. Mr. Sharp perceived the advantage he had gained, and continued,-- "Yes, sir; and I could have much to say against that chap, who is nothing more or less than Dashing Jerry, as has ruined more girls and more tradesmen than any lord in the land. And so I called to give you a bit of caution; for, says I to myself, 'Mr. Stubmore is a respectable man.'" "I hope I am, sir," said the crestfallen horse-dealer; "that was always my character." "And the father of a family?" "Three boys and a babe at the buzzom," said Mr. Stubmore pathetically. "And he sha'n't be taken in if I can help it! That 'ere young man as I am arter, you see, knows Captain Smith--ha! ha!--smell a rat now--eh?" "Captain Smith said he knew him--the wiper--and that's what made me so green."