"She is well," said the Madam, emphatically. "Well!" croaked Corkins from the background. "And this fellow from Philadelphia--was he really such a desperate creature?" asked Godiva. "A devil incarnate," replied the Madam. "What's that?" cried Herman, with a start, as the sound of a hell once more rang through the mansion. "It's the bell of the door in the alley. Run, Corkins! It's Dirk and Slung. Bring 'em up,--'put', I say!" Corkins "put," and the party waited for his return in evident anxiety. It was not long before there was the tramp of heavy steps in the passage, and two men, roughly clad--one, short, thick-set, and bow-legged, the other, tall and bony--stumbled into the room, bringing with them the perfume of very bad liquor. "Where's de ole woman?" cried Dirk; "What in de thunder de yer have candles a-burnin' in daylight for--s-a-y?" "Ole lady, I'll finger dat pewter--I will," said Slung-shot. "We laid yer man out--we did. Dat cool hundred, ef yer please." And while Herman and Godiva glided into the shadows, the two ruffians recounted the incidents of the night, in their peculiar _patois_; the Madam interrupting them with questions, at every step of the narrative. The story of these savages of city life, (and we believe that only the English and American cities produce such ruffians in a perfect state of brute-and-devil completeness,) reduced to the briefest compass, and stripped of all its oaths, read thus:--They had followed Dermoyne and Barnhurst all night long. Entering the house of Barnhurst, (the door had been left ajar,) they had found Dermoyne seated on the sofa, his eyes fixed upon a book. As one struck him with the slung-shot, the other extinguished the light, and a brief but terrible contest took place in the dark. Finally, they had borne the insensible form of Dermoyne from the house, and flung him into the gutter of a dark and deserted street. "An' dere he'd freeze to death, ef he gets over de dirk and de slung-shot--he would," added the thick-set ruffian. "And where have you been ever since?" asked the Madam, whose little eyes sparkled with joy. "Gittin' drunk," tersely remarked Dirk. "The book--you have it?" she said eagerly. To which Dirk replied, in his own way, that if he had, he hoped his eyes and liver might be made uncomfortable for an indefinite length of time. "Fact is, it slid under de sofar in de muss, an' I couldn't' find it in de dark." The Madam burst into a transport of fury, and in her rage administered the back of her hand somewhat freely to the faces of Dirk and Slung. "Out of my sight--out of my sight! Fools! Devils! That book was all that I sent you after!" and she fairly drove them from the room. They were heard shuffling in the passage, and murmuring and cursing as they went down stairs. "The miserable knaves! What trust can you put in human natur' arter this!" and she fretted and fumed along the room.