"Not if she's a widder's usual age, Jerry." Uncle Mo always figured to himself sisters, and even sisters-in-law, as essentially short of middle life. You may remember also his peculiar view that married twins could not survive their husbands. "What sort of man did you make him out to be, Mo?" "A bad sort in a turn-up with no rules. Might be handy with a knife on occasion. Foxy sort of wiper!" "Not your sort, Mo?" "Too much ill-will about him. Some of the Fancy may have run into bad feeling in my time, but mostly when they shook hands inside the ropes they meant it. How's yourself, M'riar?" Here Aunt M'riar came in after washing up, having apparently overheard none of the conversation. "I'm nicely, Mo, thankee! Have you done with the paper, Mr. Alibone?... Thanks--I'll give it to 'em upstairs.... Oh yes! I'm to rights. It was nothing but a swimming in the head! Goodnight!" And off went Aunt M'riar, leaving the friends to begin and end about two more pipes; to talk over bygones of the Ring and the Turf, and to part after midnight. * * * * * Observe, please, that until Mr. Jerry read aloud from the _Star_ Mr. Wix's _aliases_, Aunt M'riar had had no report of this escaped convict, except under the name of Davenant; and, indeed, very little under that, because Uncle Mo, in narrating to her the man's visit to Sapps Court, though he gave the name of his inquiry as Davenant, spoke of the man himself almost exclusively as Devilskin. And really she had paid very little attention to the story, or the names given. At the time of the man's appearance in the Court nothing transpired to make her associate him with any past experience of her own. He was talked about at dinner on that Sunday certainly; but then, consider the responsibilities of the carving and distribution of that shoulder of mutton. Aunt M'riar did not give the newspaper to Mrs. Burr, to read to Mrs. Prichard, till next day. Perhaps it was too late, at near eleven o'clock. When she did, it was with a reservation. Said she to Mrs. Burr:--"You won't mind losing the bit I cut out, just to keep for the address?--the cheapest shoes I ever did!--and an easy walk just out of Oxford Street." She added that Dave was very badly off in this respect. But she said nothing about what was on the other side of the shoe-shop advertisement. Was she bound to do so? Surely one side of a newspaper-cutting justifies the scissors. If Aunt M'riar could want one side, ever so little, was she under any obligation to know anything about the other side?