"No one could suppose anything like that of me," said Tom Sedley. "I beg your pardon; they can suppose anything of anybody," answered Cleve, and, seeing that Tom looked offended, he added, "and the more absurd and impossible, the more likely. I wish you heard the things that have been said of _me_--enough to make your hair stand on end, by Jove!" "Oh! I dare say." They were now turning into the street where Cleve had taken lodgings. "I could not stand those fellows any longer. My uncle has filled the house with them--varnish and paint and that stifling plaster--so I've put up here for a little time." "I like these streets. I'm not very far away from you here," said Tom. "And talking of that affair at Caen, you know, he said, by Jove he did, that he saw _you_ there." "Who said?" "Tom Blackmore of the Guards." "Then Tom Blackmore of the Guards _lies_--that's all. I never saw him--I never spoke to him--I don't know him; and how should he know me? And if he did, I wasn't there; and if I had been, what the devil was it to him? So besides telling lies, he tells _impertinent_ lies, and he ought to be kicked." "Well, of course as you say so, he must have made a mistake; but Caen is as open to you as to him, and there's no harm in the place; and he knows you by appearance." "He knows everybody by appearance, it seems, and nobody knows him; and, by Jove, he describes more like a bailiff than a Guardsman." "He's a thorough gentleman in every _idea_. Tom Blackmore is as nice a little fellow as there is in the world," battled Tom Sedley for his friend. "Well, I wish you'd persuade that faultless gentleman to let me and my concerns alone. I have a reason in this case; and I don't mind if I tell you I _was_ at Caen, and I suppose he _did_ see me. But there was no romance in the matter, except the romance of the Stock Exchange and a Jew; and I wish, Tom, you'd just consider _me_ as much as you do the old baronet, for my own sake, that is, for _I_'m pretty well dipped too, and don't want everyone to know when or where I go in quest of my Jews. I _was_--not very far from that about four months ago; and if you go about telling everyone, by Jove my uncle will guess what brought me there, and old fellows don't like _post-obits_ on their own lives." "My dear Cleve, I had not a notion----" "Well, all you can do for me now, having spread the report, is to say that I _was_n't there--I'm serious. Here we are." END OF VOL. II. BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.