This eBook was produced by Bryan Sherman and David Widger PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 4. By Edward Bulwer Lytton CHAPTER XVI. Whackum. My dear rogues, dear boys, Bluster and Dingboy! you are the bravest fellows that ever scoured yet!--SUADWELL: Scourers. Cato, the Thessalian, was wont to say that some things may be done unjustly, that many things may be done justly.--LORD BACON (being a, justification of every rascality). Although our three worthies had taken unto themselves a splendid lodging in Milsom Street, which, to please Ned, was over a hairdresser's shop, yet, instead of returning thither, or repairing to such taverns as might seem best befitting their fashion and garb, they struck at once from the gay parts of the town, and tarried not till they reached a mean-looking alehouse in a remote suburb. The door was opened to them by an elderly lady; and Clifford, stalking before his companions into an apartment at the back of the house, asked if the other gentlemen were come yet. "No," returned the dame. "Old Mr. Bags came in about ten minutes ago; but hearing more work might be done, he went out again." "Bring the lush and the pipes, old blone!" cried Ned, throwing himself on a bench; "we are never at a loss for company!" "You, indeed, never can be, who are always inseparably connected with the object of your admiration," said Tomlin, son, dryly, and taking up an old newspaper. Ned, who, though choleric, was a capital fellow, and could bear a joke on himself, smiled, and drawing forth a little pair of scissors, began trimming his nails. "Curse me," said he, after a momentary silence, "if this is not a devilish deal pleasanter than playing the fine gentleman in that great room, with a rose in one's button-hole! What say you, Master Lovett?" Clifford (as henceforth, despite his other aliases, we shall denominate our hero), who had thrown himself at full length on a bench at the far end of the room, and who seemed plunged into a sullen revery, now looked up for a moment, and then, turning round and presenting the dorsal part of his body to Long Ned, muttered, "Fish!" "Harkye, Master Lovett!" said Long Ned, colouring. "I don't know what has come over you of late; but I would have you to learn that gentlemen are entitled to courtesy and polite behaviour; and so, d' ye see, if you ride your high horse upon me, splice my extremities if I won't have satisfaction!" "Hist, man! be quiet," said Tomlinson, philosophically, snuffing the candles,-- "'For companions to quarrel, Is extremely immoral.' "Don't you see that the captain is in a revery? What good man ever loves to be interrupted in his meditations? Even Alfred the Great could not bear it! Perhaps at this moment, with the true anxiety of a worthy chief, the captain is designing something for our welfare!"