“I wants to paint her portrait,” sez ‘e, “an’ then put it in a pictur.”  “Oh,” sez I, “you wants to paint her portrait ’cause she’s such a pootty gal, an’ then you wants to make believe you drawed it out of your own ‘ead, an’ sell it,” sez I.  “Oh, but you’re a downy one, you are, an’ no mistake,” sez I.  “But I likes you none the wuss for that.  I likes a downy chap, an’ I don’t see no objection to that; but how much will you give to paint my pootty darter?” sez I.  “P’raps I’d better come in,” sez he.  “P’raps you ‘ad, if we’re a-comin’ to bisniss,” sez I; “so jest make a long leg an’ step over them dirty-nosed child’n o’ Mrs. Mix’s, a-settin’ on my doorstep, an’ I dessay we sha’n’t quarrel over a ‘undud p’un’ or two,” sez I. An’ then I bust out a-larfin’ agin—­I shall die a-larfin’.’  And then she added suddenly in the same tone of sadness, ’if I don’t die a-cryin’.’

‘Really, mother,’ said Cyril, ’it is very egotistical of you to interrupt your story with prophecies about the mood in which you will probably shuffle off the Gudgeon coil and take to Gudgeon wings.  It is the shiny Quaker we want to know about.’

‘And then the shiny Quaker comes in,’ said the woman, ’and I shets the door, being be’ind ’im, and that skears ’im for a moment, till I bust out a-larfin’:  “Oh, you needn’t be afeard,” sez I;—­“when we burgles a Quaker in Primrose Court we never minces ’im for sossingers, ’e’s so ’ily in ’is flavour.”  Well, sir, to cut a long story short, I agrees to take my pootty darter to the Quaker gent’s studero; an’ I takes ‘er nex’ day, an’ ’e puts her in a pictur.  But afore long,’ continued the old woman, leering round at Cyril, ’lo! and behold, a young swell, p’raps a young lord in disguise (I don’t want to be pussonal, an’ so I sha’n’t tell his name), ’e comes into that studero one day when I was a-settlin’ up with the Quaker gent for the week’s pay, an’ he sets an’ admires me, till I sets an’ blushes as I’m a-blushin’ at this werry moment; an’ when I gits ’ome, I sez to Polly Onion (that’s a pal o’ mine as lives on the ground floor), I sez, “Poll, bring my best lookin’-glass out o’ my bowdore, an’ let’s have a look at my old chops, for I’m blowed if there ain’t a young swell, p’raps a young lord in disguise, as ’ez fell ’ead over ears in love with me.”  And sure enough when I goes back to the studero the werry nex’ time, my young swell ’e sez to me, “It’s your own pootty face as I wants for my moral.  I dessay your darter’s a stunner—­I ain’t seen her yit—­but she cain’t be nothin’ to you.”  And I sez to ’im, “In course she ain’t, for she takes arter her father’s family, pore gal, and werry sorry she is for it."’

At this moment a servant entered and said Mr. Wilderspin was waiting in the hall.

All hope having now fled of my getting a private word with Cyril that afternoon, I was preparing to slip I away; but he would not let me go.

’I don’t want Wilderspin to know about the caricature till it is finished,’ whispered he to me; ’so I told Bunner never to let him come suddenly upon me.  You’d better be off, mother,’ he said to the old woman, ‘and come again to-morrow.’