“The best drink in the dog-days all to nothing,” returned W., “but ought to be amazingly well corked and wired down--and I’ll tell you why--it will get vapid and maybe worse. Well, I’d got it in my coat pocket, and was walking back, just by Bow Church, no more thinking of green silk pelisses than you are, Sir, at this moment--upon my honour I wasn’t--when something gave a pop and a splash, and I heard a female scream. I was afraid to look round and when I did, you might have knocked me down with a straw. You know, Tom (addressing me,) I’m not made of brass,--for the minute I felt more like melted lead--heavy and hot. Two full kettles seemed poured over me--one warm within, and the other cold without. You never saw such an object! There she stood, winking and gasping, and all over froth and foam, like a lady just emerged out of the sea only they don’t bathe in green silk pelisses and satin bonnets. You might have knocked me down with a hair. What I did or said at first I don’t know; I only remember that I attempted to wipe her face with my handkerchief, but she preferred her own. To make things worse, the passengers made a ring round us, as if we had been going to fight about it, and a good many of ’em set up a laugh. I would rather have been surrounded by banditti. I don’t tell a lie if I say I would gladly have been tossed out of the circle by a mad bull. How I longed to jump like a Harlequin into a twopenny post-box, or to slip down a plug like an eel!” “Very distressing, indeed,” said the drysalter. “I don’t think,” resumed W., “I felt as much when my poor mother died--I don’t, upon my soul! _She_ was expected for years, but the lady in green came like a thunderbolt!--When I saw the ginger-beer weltering down her, I would almost as soon have seen blood. I felt little short of a murderer. How I got her into Tweedie’s shop, Heaven knows! I suppose I pulled her in, for I cannot remember one word of persuasion. However, I got her into Tweedie’s, and had just sense enough to seat her in a chair, and to beg for a few dry cloths. To do the dear creature justice, she bore it all angelically,--but every smile, every syllable making light of her calamity, went to my heart. You don’t know my original old friend, Charles Mathews, do you, Sir?” [Illustration: BANDITTI SEIZING BOOTY.] The drysalter signified dissent.