A knot of the handkerchief which secured the joint-stock property of the comedian and the _cantatrice_ had slipped unperceived, and when the accident was discovered, portions of the wardrobe were seen upon the road a hundred yards in the rear. Mr. Montague started off to recover the missing valuables, and Julia and Mark Antony were thus for a brief space left together. The opportunity was not neglected. The girl, after a searching glance behind, suddenly addressed the fosterer. “Stranger, beware!--you know not the scoundrel who has been speaking to you. He’s all a lie,--a Jew, a sleight-of-hand man, a pickpocket, and a pugilist. Avoid him, or he’ll cheat you first, and bully you afterwards.” (A smile from Mark Antony intimated that on the latter score he was incredulous altogether.) “He followed me without my knowledge, and joined me on the road. Will you protect me to the next town? I would not trust myself another hour in that villain’s company. But soft--he comes,”--and, with ready tact, she changed the conversation to some common-place occurrence as the Jew hurried up and joined them. A few minutes more brought them to the Cock and Punch-bowl, which proved to be a low and straggling edifice situated at the junction of four roads. As Mark Antony had rapidly adopted the prejudices of his fair monitress, he now regarded the Israelite with feelings of aversion and contempt. To fear he was a stranger--and the very knowledge that the Jew was a regular prize-fighter, probably occasioned on his part a more unequivocal display of personal antipathy. On entering the hostlerie, Mr. O’Toole asked for and obtained a private apartment--ordered supper for the Prima Donna and himself--intimating plainly to the fat landlady, that notwithstanding his celebrity in the comic line, Mr. Montague was not to be a member of the mess--and that, accordingly, the Jew and himself must remain what they had hitherto been--strangers to each other. It was now twilight. The girl, but not without some difficulty, had recovered her bundle from the sleight-of-hand man, who, after several audacious attempts at a renewal of acquaintance, which on the part of the fosterer were as decidedly repulsed, was obliged to put up with a seat beside the kitchen fire, and there enjoy the tantalizing prospect of watching the progress of a supper at which his presence had been interdicted. A noise outside attracted the fair vocalist and her protector to the window. It was a recruiting party _en route_ to a neighbouring pattern, to pick up “food for powder.” There, a festival was held, where fame spoke truly, love and penance, whisky and broken heads, were all so agreeably united, that the man who could not be happy at Cahirmore must be suited only for “stratagems and treasons,” and a personage upon whom pleasure would be thrown away.