But Harper, like her sister Podger at the hospital, could be settled. “Hang it all!” cried Mahoney, as he put his feet on the mantel-board, and roared again, “it’s worth a whole shopful of crockery to have sold Harper like that. O Jane, sister of the immortal Podger, and you to be had by a _latissimus dorsi_; you, who declared you knew your anatomy as well as we did. O Jane! O Jane! you’ll never pass your ‘final,’ not even in your winding sheet!” “Go on with your impidence, Mr. Mahoney; it was the new girl as was had, not _me_; I am too old a bird to be caught a second time. Mr. Redway served me that trick once, and I never forgave him-well, at least, not for some time after.” All this was great fun for Mahoney and his pal Murphy on the other side of the fireplace, and they laughed consumedly, for they knew the worthy dame _had_ been sold that time. But a glass of whisky, which she would not drink before them, but declared she would take the last thing at night, as a precaution against spasms, soothed her down, and a promise of a brace of pheasants out of the next hamper of game from home, sent her to the kitchen in a good humour. She could not be angry with the boy long together. He paid well, and her sister Podger loved him as her own son. Her first floor was occupied by two students, Rice and Higgins. They were both of Mahoney’s set, lively boys all. Sons of wealthy parents, they had usually money enough to squander; but there were times when funds sank low, and they were reduced to amazing shifts to extract the needful amusement which every succeeding night demanded. The ups and downs of the life they led might serve to prepare them for the vicissitudes of the future, and to accustom them to the readiness of resource which is so characteristic of all medical men. To-night they would be feasting at a West-end restaurant, and drinking costly brands of champagne; to-morrow, as likely as not, would find them supping on a few pennyworth of fried fish, and drinking porter out of a pewter pot. It was all the same to them, even if it were not more congenial to be associated with rowdies in a Whitechapel bar-room, than to be dining with their equals in civilised society. Mrs. Harper, as we said, was not at all particular in the matter of larks, though she was rather annoyed when she went into Mr. Murphy’s sitting-room one morning to lay the breakfast, and saw, over the fireplace in front of her new looking-glass, a great black board, painted in large white letters, “To be Let or Sold, this desirable semi-detached Villa Residence. For cards to view, apply Buggins & Son, 113 Great Mowbray Street, E.C.”