"The Poet moaned, and pointed to the paper. "I know," nodded Sam; "is it true, d'ye think?" "My heart forebodes," said Mr. Moggridge, collapsing still further-- "my heart forebodes 'tis true, 'tis true; then deck my shroud about with rue, and lay me 'neath the dismal--" "Pooh!" broke in Sam; "stuff and nonsense, man! It's bad for you, I know, but after all _I'm_ the sufferer." The Collector of Customs turned a glassy stare upon him. "_I_ carried the bag up to Five Lanes; _I_ put the infernal stuff into her very hands; _I_--" "_You?_" Sam nodded desperately. "She asked me to elope with her--to meet her at Five Lanes." Mr. Moggridge staggered up to his feet, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. "You are mad!" he gasped. "She asked _me_ to elope with her--_me_ to meet her at the top of Troy Hill. Look here!" He held out a crumpled letter. Sam took it, glanced at it, produced an exactly similar note, and handed it to his friend. They read each the other's letter sentence by sentence, and in doleful antiphon. At the conclusion they looked up, and met each other's gaze; whereat Mr. Moggridge smote his brow and cried-- "False, false!" While Sam pushed his hands deep into his trouser-pockets and emitted a long breath, as though, his cup being full, he must needs blow off the froth. "Do you mean to say," he asked, after a pause, "that you helped her to land the stuff?" "I thought it was Tea." "And you never examined it?" "She told me it was Tea." "Moggridge, you have been given away, as the Yankees put it. I have been sold, which is bad; but you have been 'given away,' which is worse." "You were sold for 'love,' which is pretty much the same, I take it, as being given away," objected the Poet testily. "Not at all the same, Moggridge, as being given away--with half a pound of Tea." Footnote, Chapter XXIII [1] Medicine. CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE BEST HELLEBORE; AND AN EXPERIMENT IN THE ENTERTAINMENT OF TWINS. For three days Mr. Fogo continued to propose. On the evening of the third day the little Doctor shook his head. After this, for about a week, Mr. Fogo proposed and the Doctor shook his head at intervals. Finally, and in the middle of a sentence, the patient fell into a deep slumber. When he awoke, it was to the conviction that he, Mr. Fogo, being a bolster, had been robbed of his rightful stuffing by some person or persons unknown. He had lain for some time pondering this situation with a growing resentment, when he was aware of some one sitting between him and the sunshine. "Who are you?" he asked. "I am Tamsin Dearlove." The remark made by Diogenes under somewhat like circumstances would have been ungallant. In the process of searching for a better the sick man fell asleep again. What happened on his next return to consciousness shall be given in his own words. He told me the story last autumn:--