Then, when he reappeared after some temporary absence before the wedding, it was after this ridiculous fashion.

There was a wooden staircase screened off one side of the long-room down which he would occasionally creep to listen at the door at bottom to the tattle of the boys about him.

He was heard creaking downstairs, and some active young fellow by a round-about byway managed to steal down behind and suddenly pushed him by the burst open door, spread-eagle fashion, into the laughing long-room! The poor victim pretended it was an accident, "Ye see, Mr.Yates, I was coming down the stair, and me foot slipped." It seems that the luckless Andrew was coming, so he averred, expressly to expostulate with the boys, to throw himself on their generosity for a subscription towards his ruined greenhouse, and to ask Messrs.

"Punsonby," Yates, & Co.

to promote it.
This they promised to do, and did after an original fashion.