Mr. Huckaback removed his cigar from his mouth, and holding it between the first and second fingers of his right hand, in a knowing style, with closed eyes and inflated cheeks, very slowly ejected the smoke which he had last inhaled, and rose and got the paper from the top of the drawers. "Here's a mark of a beastly porter-pot that's been set upon it, by all that's holy! It's been at the public-house! Too bad of Mrs. Coggs to send it me up in this state!" said he, handling it as though its touch were contamination.--(He was to pay only a halfpenny for the perusal of it.) "Faugh! how it stinks!" "What a horrid beast she must be!" exclaimed Titmouse, after, in like manner as his friend, expelling his mouthful of smoke. "But, since better can't be had, let's hear what news is in it. Demmee! it's the only paper published, in my opinion, that's worth reading!--Any fights astirring?" "Haven't come to them yet; give a man _time_, Titty!" replied Huckaback, fixing his feet on another chair, and drawing the candle closer to the paper. "It says, by the way, that the Duke of Dunderhead is certainly making up to Mrs. Thumps, the rich cheesemonger's widow;--a precious good hit that, isn't it? You know the Duke's as poor as a rat!" "Oh! _that's_ no news. It's been in the papers for I don't know how long. Egad, 't will quite set him up--and no mistake. Seen the Duke ever?" "Ye--es! Oh, several times!" replied Huckaback. This was a lie, and Huckaback knew that it was. "Deuced good-looking, I suppose?" "Why--middling; I should say middling. Know _some_ that needn't fear to compare with _him_--eh! Tit?"--and Huckaback winked archly at his friend, meaning him, however, to consider the words as applicable to the speaker. "Ah, ha, ha!--a pretty joke! But come, that's a good chap!--You can't be reading both of those two sheets at once--give us the other sheet, and set the candle right betwixt us!--Come, fair's the word among _gents_, you know!" Huckaback thus appealed to, did as his friend requested; and the two gentlemen read and smoked for some minutes in silence. "Well--I shall spell over the advertisements now," said Titmouse, very emphatically; "there's a pretty lot of them--and I've read everything else--(though precious little there is, _here_ besides!)--So, here goes!--One _may_ hear of a prime situation, you know--and I'm quite sick of Tag-rag!" Another interval of silence ensued. Huckaback was deep in the ghastly but instructive details of a trial for murder; and Titmouse, after having glanced listlessly over the entertaining first sheet of advertisements, was on the point of laying down his half of the paper, when he suddenly started in his chair, turned very pale, and stammered-- "Hollo!--hollo, Hucky!--Why"---- "What's the matter, Tit?--eh?" inquired Huckaback, greatly astonished.