Madame Flirt

ver clapped eyes on. Wake u

very heart of St. Giles, clapped his sleeping friend on the shoulder and shook him. The sleeper, a young man whose finely drawn features we

e walked with the mob from Newgate to Tyburn and back and refreshed himself at every tavern on the way, not forgetting, I warrant you, to fling away a guine

easured by years. I don't know but what it's possible to cram one's whole existence into a fe

easure without pain as he had come to discover. Maybe at that moment a recollection of his follie

's best was when the noose was round his neck. The rascal will trouble nervous folks no more. After all he was of some use. See that drunken rabble. But for the brave show

s eyes to the

houghts are on yonder pretty little jade. Look for yourself, Bolingbrok

the charmer?" said Bolingb

e of a nightingale. I've heard her before. L

ould die rather than rub shoulders wi

ith her voice. What says Will Congreve? Music

smile. Then she sang. The ditty was "Cold and Raw," a ballad that two hundred years ago or so, never failed to delight everybody from the highest to the lowest. She gave i

about. It's meant for something better tha

to severity. Twenty-five years before it was not so. He was then the gayest of the gay and in the heyday of his career. Much had happened since then. Disappoint

usual turmoil consequent upon the execution of Jack Sheppard; so Viscount Bolingbroke re

some of his mad moods St. Giles was more to his taste than St. James's. So long as the face was beautiful, and the tongue given to piquant raillery,

d captured his heart. She sold oranges about the door of the Court of Requests, she sang ballads in the street, she was a little better than a light of love, yet Bolingbroke cou

ess Clara, to m

ce the lover a

eatures formed on an ample mould had entered. Gay was entranced by the singer and did no

cadence. Gay beckoned to her

," cried Gay. "Who

sir," said she d

od teacher. There'

.. it's t

't Polly it ought to be. Wha

n idle sl

d save her eyes, which d

tered last laughed the loudest and deepest, and loud and deep as w

nt. We need someone who knows good music when he hea

estion, Mr. Gay, by asking you a

am will have the dedication of it and if his mother, the Princess

you'll gain a fortune sooner by writing a ballad or two for this pretty songster. Make h

ace bri

rking. I'll think on't, but that mea

ined Leveridge, the ghost of a smil

ndow, her gaze fixed wistfully on Gay and Leveridge. She k

sted his hands on the window sill. Bolingbroke had sunk into his chair, and buried in

crowd had pressed round her and were clamourous for her to sing again. Some had

rl app

Pol

Lavinia Fenton, sir

ver mind. If it's Lavinia, Lavinia it must

ee house in

she ke

s,

at do y

e customers

ing in the streets-r

mother driv

es she? That bruise on your

irl n

ou left your mother and

squeezing her hands tightly together t

, perhaps. I must

he High Street from St. Martin's Lane, jostling, fighting, cursing, eager for devilment, no matter what. They rushed to the host

en Head" hurried into the

e scum's none too nice. Anything it wants it'll take

an, landlord?" a

rs, his body was to be handed over to the surgeons like the rest o' the Tyburn gentry, but his friends would have none of it. A bailiff somehow got hold of the corpse to make money out of it-trust them sharks for

"the people make more fuss over a burglar than over a ballad m

e buried to-night in St. Martin's Churchyar

e enough," rejoined Bolingbroke refr

ur honou

window. Gay, whose eyes had never shifted from the girl outside, saw her cheeks sudden

to harm else. Lord! Look at those drunken beasts. No-no"-the landlord

ng, men and women jostling each other, embracing vulgarly, th

t shoulders, her ample bust. Some day unless her tastes and her manner of life altered she would end in a bloway drab, every vestige of

gh; her white teeth gleamed; the blood ran riot in her veins; she was the embodiment of exuberant, semi-sava

to get away without notice, but the Bacchante's escort was too numerous, too

ble. Dick," he whispered hurriedly to Leveridge, "you can use your fists if need be. I've seen you have a set-to

d followed his frie

her class-set eyes on the girl than her brows were knitted and her lips and nostrils went white. Her cheeks on the other hand b

squalling trollop?" she screamed. "H

ntence can be very well l

of the beautiful virago n

ch of it, but I suppose I've as much ri

trull, or you'll drive me to t

disengaged hand she s