“But sure,” he went on, “’twas hard on the poor cur, that had never heard of Captain Lucius Higgs—” I thought the bully would have had him by the windpipe and pitched him after the mastiff, so fiercely he turn’d at the sound of this name. But the old gentleman skipped back quite nimbly and held up a finger. “I’m a man of peace. If another title suits you better—” “Where the devil got you that name?” growled the bully, and had half a mind to come on again, but the other put in briskly— “I’m on a plain errand of business. No need, as you hint, to mention names; and therefore let me present myself as Mr. Z. The residue of the alphabet is at your service to pick and choose from.” “My name is Luke Settle,” said the big man hoarsely (but whether this was his natural voice or no I could not tell). “Let us say ‘Mr. X.’ I prefer it.” The old gentleman, as he said this, popped his head on one side, laid the forefinger of his right hand across the book, and seem’d to be considering. “Why did you throttle that dog a minute ago?” he asked sharply. “Why, to save my skin,” answers the fellow, a bit puzzled. “Would you have done it for fifty pounds?” “Aye, or half that.” “And how if it had been a _puppy_, Mr. X?” Now all this from my hiding I had heard very clearly, for they stood right under me in the dusk. But as the old gentleman paused to let his question sink in, and the bully to catch the drift of it before answering, one of the dicers above struck up to sing a catch—— “With a hey, trolly-lolly! a leg to the Devil, And answer him civil, and off with your cap: Sing—Hey, trolly-lolly! Good-morrow, Sir Evil, We’ve finished the tap, And, saving your worship, we care not a rap!” While this din continued, the stranger held up one forefinger again, as if beseeching silence, the other remaining still between the pages of his book. “Pretty boys!” he said, as the noise died away; “pretty boys! ’Tis easily seen they have a bird to pluck.” “He’s none of my plucking.” “And if he were, why not? Sure you’ve picked a feather or two before now in the Low Countries—hey?” “I’ll tell you what,” interrupts the big man, “next time you crack one of your death’s-head jokes, over the wall you go after the dog. What’s to prevent it?” “Why, this,” answers the old fellow, cheerfully. “There’s money to be made by doing no such thing. And I don’t carry it all about with me. So, as ’tis late, we’d best talk business at once.”