“But, my good woman,” began my uncle, “Mr. Sant----” “Bless ’im for a hinnercent suckling-dove o’cooing among the sarpints!” she interrupted, with a tight little laugh. We looked at her quite bewildered, and Uncle Jenico was evidently at a loss for an answer. “What ’e wants, that ’e believes,” said Mrs. Puddephatt, nodding her head many times. “But _he_ ain’t a Londoner, and _hi ham_!” The advantage, one would have thought, lay with the untainted clergyman. “_Herthquake_, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Puddephatt, with withering contempt. “And grace took hout of it? No, sir; not more than what Elijah looked to find in his’n, and was deceived in the Almighty. A fine show convert we’ve got in our Mr. Rampick, haven’t we? Ho, yes! Tee-hee! And I ’opes as he makes it pay, sinst the loss of his liveli’ood by the _herthquake_.” The amount of scorn she got each time into the word was simply blasting. “He lost----” began my uncle, surprised. “Ah! what would he lose, now?” interrupted the lady, acridly humorous. “That’s just _hit_, sir. Talked of the wicked smugglers to Master Bowen here, didn’t he? Well, supposin’ he were hisself the most howtdacious of the lot? I don’t say he was, you know. I wouldn’t so commit myself. I merely states as a curious fact that this Rampick, as was formerly as warm and dangerous a man as the best in the place, is, sinst the _herthquake_, become a loafer, without any visible means of substance. Ho, yes! A pretty convert, I _don’t_ think!” “You believe him to be at heart a smuggler still?” said my uncle. “Now, now, Mrs. Puddephatt!” “Sir,” she answered, with dignity, “I thank you for the himplication; but whatever my apperient greenness, I wasn’t born yesterday. We may have our faults in London, but to be Suffolk paunches isn’t among them. Once a smuggler, sir, is halways a smuggler.” “Indeed?” said Uncle Jenico, much abashed. “Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Puddephatt; “just as to be born a gipsy is to laugh at the rates. A ’ottentot, sir, isn’t ashamed of his own nekkedness, nor a smuggler of his smugness. Reform, hindeed!” “Well, well,” said Uncle Jenico. “But what makes you suppose it _wasn’t_ an earthquake?” The landlady laughed sarcastic. “In London, sir,” she said, “_herthquakes_--as is p’raps beknownst to you--sends out sulfurious perfumes, and not the heffluvium of brandy.” “Good heavens!” exclaimed my uncle. “But what----?” “I reveal nothing, Mr. Paxton,” she interrupted him, “but what my nose tells me. You may smell it yet, sir, begging your pardon, about the Mitre.” “But----” “I’ve ’eard tell, sir, of ile wells, but never of brandy. I may be wrong; and halso I may be wrong in doubting that gunpowder forms of itself in the ’oller places of the herth,” and with these enigmatic words she left us. But it must be said that, for all her withering gentility, she made us an excellent landlady, as we had full opportunity of proving. For--I may as well out with it at once--we had come to Dunberry to stay.