Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

CHARLES'S SECOND EXPEDITION. 247
"I must learn to do as the rest of them." And so he did as the
rest of them, and " rather loafed away his time than otherwise."
And he was more. inclined to "loaf" than usual this day,
because he very much dreaded what was to come. And so he
dawdled round to St. Peter's Church, and came upon his young
friend, playing at fives with the ball he had given him, as energetically as he had before played with the brass button. Shoeblacks are compelled to a great deal of unavoidable " loafing";
but certainly this one loafed rather energetically, for he was hot
and frantic in his play.
He was very glad to see Charles. He parted his matted hair
from his face, and looking at him admiringly with a pleasant
smile; then he suddenly said," You was drunk last night, worn't you? "
Charles said, No, - that he never got drunk.
"Worn't you really, though? " said the boy; "you look as
tho' you had a been. You looks wild about the eyes," and then
he hazarded another theory to account for Charles's appearance,
which Charles also negatived emphatically.
" I give a halpenny for this one," said the boy, showing him
the ball, "and I spent the other halpenny." Here he paused,
expecting a rebuke, apparently; but Charles nodded kindly at
him, and he was encouraged to go on, and to communicate a
piece of intelligence with the air of one who assumes that his
hearer is au fait with all the movements of the great world, and
will be interested.
" Old Biddy Flanigan's dead."
"No! is she?" said Charles, who, of course, had not the
wildest idea who she was, but guessed her to be an aged, and
probably dissipated Irishwoman.
"Ah! I believe you," said the boy. "And they was a-waking
on her last night, down in our court (he said,' daone in &ASur
cawt'). They waked we sharp enough; but, as for she! she's
fast."
" What did she die of? " asked Charles.
"Well, she died mostly along of Mr. Malone's bumble foot, I
fancy. Him and old Biddy was both drunk a-fighting on the
stairs, and she was a step below he; and he being drunk, and
bumble-footed too, lost his balance, and down they come together,
and the back of her head come against the door-scraper, and
there she was. Wake she! " he added with scorn, " not if all the
Irish and Rooshans in France was to put stones in their stockings, and howl a week on end, they would n't wake her."
"Did they put stones in their stockings?" asked Charles,
thinking that it was some papist form of penance.
"Miss Ophelia Flanigan, she put half a brick in her stocking