“You’ve had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn’t mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?”

“Not a drop. Not a drop,” said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.

“I think you will,” said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. “Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.”

Mr. Bumble coughed.

“Now, just a leetle drop,” said Mrs. Mann persuasively.

“What is it?” inquired the beadle.

“Why, it’s what I’m obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants’ Daffy, when they ain’t well, Mr. Bumble,” replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. “It’s gin. I’ll not deceive you, Mr. B. It’s gin.”

“Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?” inquired Bumble, following with his eyes the interesting process of mixing.

“Ah, bless ‘em, that I do, dear as it is,” replied the nurse. “I couldn’t see ’em suffer before my very eyes, you know, sir.”

“No,” said Mr. Bumble approvingly, “no, you could not. You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.” (Here she set down the glass.) “I shall take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, Mrs. Mann.” (He drew it towards him.) “You feel as a mother, Mrs. Mann.” (He stirred the gin-and-water.) “I—I drink your health with cheerfulness, Mrs. Mann,” and he swallowed half of it.

“And now about business,” said the beadle, taking out a leathern pocket-book. “The child that was half-baptized Oliver Twist is nine year old to-day.”

“Bless him!” interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming her left eye with the corner of her apron.

“And notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was afterwards increased to twenty pound—not withstanding the most superlative, and, I may say, supemat‘ral exertions on the part of this parish,” said Bumble, “we have never been able to discover who is his father, or what was his mother’s settlement, name, or con—dition.”

Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment, but added, after a moment’s reflection, “How comes he to have any name at all, then?”

The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, “I invented it.”

“You, Mr. Bumble!”

“I, Mrs. Mann. We name our fondlings in alphabetical order. The last was a S—Swubble, I named him.