“Och, boys, af ye but knew my loss. There ye lie, Nelly! could as a crimpt cod; an when ye were sober--to be sure it was but seldom--the divil blister the better wife in St. Giles’s--an that’s a big word. Come, gintlemen, take a pinch out of respect for the dead--Lord rest her--amen!--and then draw a sate, an make yerselves agreeable. Patsey Doyle, there’s a lemon-box in the corner--fix it, _avournene_, for the gintilmen--an now, Mistress Braddigen, may be yee’d obleege us wid a song.” The lady, an agreeable exception to professional melodists who never sing when people want them, immediately complied with the request of Mr. Malone; and having, as a necessary preliminary, removed all bronchial obstructions with a _johny_ of “cream of the valley,” she executed with feeling and effect that beautiful ballad, intituled “The night before Larry was stretched”--and the well-merited plaudits of a delighted audience had just rewarded the exertions of the fair singer, when two fresh arrivals were added to the company. The visitors were of the softer sex. One, was a stout gentlewoman of a certain age, whom he of the solitary leg announced as Mrs. Bunce--and the second, a very pretty young one, was also introduced as Mrs. Spicer. The fosterer and his friend, being the only gentlemen who could afford accommodation to the new comers, the master of ceremonies deposited the stout lady upon the knees of Shemus Kkua, while to Mark Antony, the honour “of bearing the weight” of Mrs. Spicer was entrusted. The discernment evinced in the collection of the company would have been in itself a sufficient guarantee for its general respectability; and hence, the intercourse, on all sides, was easy and unreserved. “‘Pon my sowl! a ginteeler party I hav’nt been to these six months,” observed Mrs. Spicer to the fosterer, after she had turned down a _flash of max_ to ‘a better acquaintance,’--“and Malone--Lord comfort him in sorra!--shows the best of respect to his desaste lady.--I hope there won’t be any ruction the night, and that the wake will go off agreeable. The Connaught stockin’-man, who was bate at Phil Casey’s ball a Friday night, died this evenin’ in Guy’s Hospital. He left his death, they say, on Playbe Davis, for hitten him, wid the smoothin’-iron, when down.” “I was rather afeard, Sally, dear,” observed Mrs. Bunce to Mrs. Spicer, “that cross ould file, yer husband, wouldn’t let ye out the night.” “And not a toe would I have got over the trashold ather,” returned Mrs. Spicer, “only something he heard druv him into the Minories, to ask after the carakter of a chap who came to lodge with us last Monday. By gogstay, if the ould ruffin comes home early, and finds me out--may be there won’t be a purty _too-roo_ kicked up? Well, the divil may care--as Punch said when he missed mass!” Then, in a lower tone, she addressed herself to the fosterer.