Mr. Fogo distributed his warlike verses in every direction; then when not a poem remained, he began to collect them again. But the company proved in very vein for these lays of blood. Both the future combatants made several purchases; Mr. Snell also patronised the poet, while Mattacott, Screech, and even Mr. Maunder himself, became possessed of ’Frosty-face’s’ sanguine chronicles. It being now closing time, the storm-laden air was cleared; the noisy company, with laughter and repetition of racy couplets from Mr. Fogo’s muse, retired, and at last the two old friends were left alone. Shillabeer shut up his bar and locked the house; ’Frosty’ counted the contents of his pocket and gathered up the poems still unsold. "I ought to share the booty with you, ’Dumpling,’" he said, but his host scorned the thought. "Hope you’ll be sold out long afore you go," he returned. "And as to sharing, that’s nonsense. You’re a great man, and if you be going to stop along of me for three weeks, you’ll bring a lot of custom, for the people will come from far and near to see you." "Of course if you put it that way, I say no more, because you know best," declared Fogo. Presently they sat together over a final pipe. "Now talk of the wife," said Reuben. Mr. Fogo obeyed, cast his acute countenance into a mould of melancholy, appeared to draw a film over his piercing eyes, ceased joyously to rattle the money in his breeches pocket, and shook his head sadly once or twice to catch the spirit of the theme. "The biggest and the best woman I ever saw, or ever hope to see," he began. "I picture her now--as a young, gay creature in her father’s shop at the corner of the Dials. Rabbits and caveys and birds he sold and him a sportsman to the marrow. Thirteen stone in her maiden days, they used to say, and very nearly six feet high--the wonder and the joy of the male sex. And ’twas left for you to win that rare female. And you did; and you was the envied of London, ’Dumpling’--the envied of London." Mr. Shillabeer nodded, sighed heavily, and licked his lips at these picturesque words. "It brings her back--so large as life--to hear you tell about her. ’Twas the weight she put on after marriage that killed her, ’Frosty,’" he said. "You must see her grave in the burying-ground." "And take my hat off to it--so I will." "There’s room for me beside her, come my turn, Fogo." "Quite right--perfectly right. You couldn’t wait for the trump of Doom beside a better woman." Reuben next gave all details of his wife’s last illness, and the subject occupied him until midnight when conversation drifted from Mrs. Shillabeer to other matters. They talked until the peat fire sank to a red eye and the air grew cold. Then conversation waned and both heroes began to grow sleepy. Mr. Shillabeer rose first and concluded the wide survey. "Ah, ’Frosty,’ the days we’ve seen!" he said.