_The E._ (_sternly_). Would you were anything half so serviceable to the community, Sir! I have no superstitious reverence for rank, and am, I trust, sufficiently enlightened to discern worth and merit--even beneath the spangled vest of the humblest acrobat. Your foster-brother, brief as our acquaintance has been, has already endeared himself to all hearts, while you have borne a trifling reverse of fortune with sullen discontent and conspicuous incapacity. He has perfected himself in a lofty and distinguished profession during years spent by _you_, Sir, in idly cumbering the earth of Eton and Oxford. Shall I allow him to suffer by a purely accidental coincidence? Never! I owe him reparation, and it shall be paid to the uttermost penny. From this day, I adopt him as my eldest son, and the heir to my earldom, and all other real and personal effects. See, ROBERT HENRY, that you treat your foster-brother as your senior in future! _Coltsf._ (_to_ Lord B). Way-oh, ole matey, I don't bear no malice, _I_ don't! Give us your dooks. [_Offering hand._ _The C._ Ah, BULLSAYE, try to be worthy of such generosity! [Lord B. _grasps_ COLTSFOOT'S _hand in silence._ _Lady Rose._ And pray, understand that, whether Mr. COLTSFOOT be viscount or acrobat, it can make no difference whatever to the disinterested affection with which I have lately learnt to regard him. [_Gives her hand to_ COLTSFOOT, _who squeezes it with ardour_. _Coltsf._ (_pleasantly_). Well, Father, Mother, your noble Herlship and Lady, foster-brother BULLSAYE, and my pretty little sweetart 'ere, what do you all say to goin' inside and shunting a little garbage, and shifting a drop or so of lotion, eh? _The E._ A most sensible suggestion, my boy. Let us make these ancient walls the scene of the blithest--ahem!--_beano_ they have ever yet beheld! [_Cheers from Tenantry, as the_ Earl _leads the way into the Castle with_ Mrs. HOREHOUND, _followed by_ HOREHOUND _with the Countess and_ COLTSFOOT _with_ Lady ROSE, Lord BULLSAYE, _discomfited and abashed, entering last as Curtain falls_.] * * * * * KICKED! (_By the Foot of Clara Groomley._) CHAPTER IV. AND LAST. In the little sitting-room above his shop sat Mr. ASSID ROPES. It was the afternoon before Christmas Day. He had generously allowed all his assistants to leave. "If anybody wants their hair cut, or their hat ironed," he said, "I'll do it myself, and then they'll wish they hadn't." Yet, when a customer rapped on the floor below, Mr. ROPES felt exceedingly angry. "What do you want?" he called down the stairs. "I want my hat ironed," said a clear, manly voice. "Go away! Your hat doesn't want ironing. Go to bed!" "I will not go away," said the clear, firm voice, "until you have attended to my hat--hat once, if you please." Mr. ROPES came grumbling down the stairs. For one moment he gazed at the man in the shop, and then flung his arms round him and wept tears of joy.