The speakers were close under the bow-window of the inn, and as the sash was open, Curiosity herself could not help overhearing their conversation. So I laid down Mrs. Opie’s “Illustrations of Lying,”--which I had found lying in the inn window--and took a glance at the partners in the dialogue. One of them was much older than the other, and much taller; he seemed to have grown like quick-set. The other was thick-set. “I tell you, Thomas,” said Quickset, “you are a flat. Before you’ve been a day in London, they’ll have the teeth out of your very head. As for me, I’ve been there twice, and know what’s what. Take my advice: never tell the truth on no account. Questions is only asked by way of pumping; and you ought always to put ’em on a wrong scent.” “But aunt is to send her man to meet me at the Old Bailey,” said Thickset, “and to show me to her house. Now if a strange man says to me, ‘young man, are you Jacob Giles,’--an’t I to tell him?” “By no manner of means,” answered Quickset; “say you are quite another man. No one but a flat would tell his name to a stranger about London. You see how I answered them last night about what was in the waggon. Brooms, says I, nothing else. A flat would have told them there was the honey-pots underneath; but I’ve been to London before, and know a thing or two.” “London must be a desperate place,” said Thickset. “Mortal!” said Quickset, “fobs and pockets are nothing! Your watch is hardly safe if you carried it in your inside, and as for money----” “I’m almost sorry I left Berkshire,” said Thickset. “Poo--poo,” said Quickset, “don’t be afeard. I’ll look after ye; cheat me, and they’ve only one more to cheat. Only mind my advice. Don’t say anything of your own head, and don’t object to anything _I_ say. If I say black’s white, don’t contradict. Mark that. Say everything as I say.” “I understand what you mean,” said Thickset; and with this lesson in his shock head, he began to busy himself about the waggon, while his comrade went to the stable for the horses. At last Old Ball emerged from the stable-door with the head of Old Dumpling resting on his crupper; when a yell rose from the rear of the waggon, that startled even Number 55, at the Bush Inn, at Staines, and brought the company running from the remotest box in its retired tea-garden. [Illustration: A TEA GARDEN.] “In the name of everything,” said the landlord, “what’s the matter?” “It’s gone--all gone, by goles!” cried Thickset, with a bewildered look at Quickset, as if doubtful whether he ought not to have said it was _not_ gone. “You don’t mean to say the honey-pots!” said Quickset, with some alarm, and letting go the bridle of Old Ball, who very quietly led old Dumpling back again into the stable; “you don’t mean to say the honey-pots?” “I _don’t_ mean to say the honey-pots,” said Thickset, literally following the instructions he had received. “What made you screech out then?” said Quickset, appealing to Thickset.