"Never mind that now; you got to the shop, didn't you?" "Yes, I got to the shop, sir, and I see the lady; but I sez to that conductor, 'You should ha' told me,' I sez----" "Did she give you anything for me?" interrupted Leander, impatiently. "Yessur," said the boy. "Then where the dooce is it?" "'Ere!" said William, and brought out an envelope, which his master tore open with joy. It contained his own letter! "William," he said unsteadily, "is this all?" "Ain't it enough, sir?" said the young scoundrel, who had guessed the state of affairs, and felt an impish satisfaction at his employer's rejection. "None of that, William; d'ye hear me?" said Leander. "William, I ain't been a bad master to you. Tell me, how did she take it?" "Well, she didn't seem to want to take it nohow at first," said the boy. "I went up to the desk where she was a-sittin' and gave it her, and by-and-by she opened it with the tips of her fingers, as if it would bite, and read it all through very careful, and I could see her nose going up gradual, and her colour coming, and then she sez to me, 'You may go now, boy; there's no answer.' And I sez to her, 'If you please, miss, master said as I was not to go away without a answer.' So she sez, uncommon short and stiff, 'In that case he shall have it!'--like that, she says, as proud as a queen, and she scribbles a line or two on it, and throws it to me, and goes on casting up figgers." "A line or two! where?" cried Leander, and caught up the letter again. Yes, there on the last page was Matilda's delicate commercial handwriting, and the poor man read the cruel words, "_I have nothing to advise; I give you up to your 'goddess'!_" "Very well, William," he said, with a deadly calm; "that's all. You young devil! what are you a-sniggering at?" he added, with a sudden outburst. "On'y something I 'eard a boy say in the street, sir, going along, sir; nothing to do with you, sir." "Oh, youth, youth!" muttered the poor broken man; "boys don't grow feelings, any more than they grow whiskers!" And he went back to his saloon, where he was instantly hailed with reproaches from the abandoned customer. "Look here, sir! what do you mean by this? I told you I wanted to be shaved, and you've soaped the top of my head and left it to cool! What"--and he made use of expletives here--"what are you about?" Leander apologized on the ground of business of a pressing nature, but the customer was not pacified. "Business, sir! your business is _here_: _I'm_ your business! And I come to be shaved, and you soap the top of my head, and leave me all alone to dry! It's scandalous! it's----" "Look here, sir," interrupted Leander, gloomily; "I've a good deal of private trouble to put up with just now, without having _you_ going on at me; so I must ask you not to 'arris me like this, or I don't know what I might do, with a razor so 'andy!"