"What o' that? what o' that?" she exclaimed somewhat testily at being corrected, "has that onything to dae wi' the argiment? If ye git yer feet wat, bairns, mind to chynge them--an' whatever ye dae--" She stopped suddenly. One glance at her placid old countenance sufficed to show that she had retired to the previous century, from which nothing now could recall her except sausages. The youths therefore went out. Meanwhile Mr Enoch Blurt sat in his brother's back shop entertaining a visitor. The shop itself had, for a considerable time past, been put under the care of an overgrown boy, who might--by courtesy and a powerful stretch of truth--have been styled a young man. Jiggs--he appeared to have no other name--was simply what men style a born idiot: not sufficiently so to be eligible for an asylum, but far enough gone to be next to useless. Mr Blurt had picked him up somewhere, in a philanthropic way--no one ever knew how or where--during one of his many searches after George Aspel. Poor Mr Blurt was not happy in his selection of men or boys. Four of the latter whom he had engaged to attend the shop and learn the business had been dismissed for rough play with the specimens, or making free with the till when a few coppers chanced to be in it. They had failed, also, to learn the business; chiefly because there was no business to learn, and Mr Enoch Blurt did not know how to teach it. When he came in contact with Jiggs, Mr Blurt believed he had at last secured a prize, and confided that belief to Mrs Murridge. So he had, as regards honesty. Jiggs was honest to the core; but as to other matters he was defective--to say the least. He could, however, put up and take down the shutters, call Mr Blurt down-stairs if wanted--which he never was; and tell customers, when he was out, to call again--which he never did, as customers never darkened the door. Jiggs, however, formed a sufficient scarecrow to street boys and thieves. The visitor in the back shop--to whom we now return--was no less a personage than Miss Gentle, whose acquaintance Mr Blurt had made on board the ill-fated mail steamer _Trident_. That lady had chanced, some weeks before, to pass the ornithological shop, and, looking in, was struck dumb by the sight of the never-forgotten fellow-passenger who had made her a confidant. Recovering speech, she entered the shop and introduced herself. The introduction was needless. Mr Blurt recognised her at once, dropped his paper, extended both hands, gave her a welcome that brought even Jiggs back to the verge of sanity, and had her into the back shop, whence he expelled Mrs Murridge to some other and little-known region of the interior. The interview was so agreeable that Mr Blurt begged it might be repeated. It was repeated four times. The fifth time it was repeated by special arrangement in the evening, for the purpose of talking over a business matter.