“I trust, Mr. Jericho,” said the wife—“I trust you have not been eating opium? I have seen horrible examples in the East, and—no, you have not been eating opium, Jericho?”

“Pooh! Opium! No drug in the world could make a man feel so happy as I am now,” and Jericho snapt his fingers, and cut a caper. “Why, it’s a bit of paradise.”

“He doesn’t look mad,” thought Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.

“I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain! Wonderful!” Jericho trod up and down the room, and snapt his fingers; now suddenly stopt at Mrs. Jericho, and—startled woman! she herself could hardly believe it—and put his hand tenderly beneath her chin, and inflicted upon her lips a vigorous kiss.

“Jericho! Well, this is stranger than everything,” said the astonished wife.

“You cannot think, Sabilla, how happy I do feel,” and Jericho threw himself in his chair, and rubbed his hands, and still looked joyously about him. “Something’s going to happen.”

“Perhaps a new vein in the mines?” suggested Mrs. Jericho.

“Perhaps,” said Jericho, a little dubiously.

“And now, my dear, about this party to Jogtrot Hall. Are we to go?”

“Go! Of course,” said Jericho. “Let the dear girls go. I should be a monster to refuse them. Besides, it’s only right they should go. And Basil, too. A noble youth; a little too fond of rats and dogs,—but a noble young fellow. Some day, no doubt, he’ll be an honour to the bench. Fal lal de ral, lal, lal,” and Jericho’s full spirit overflowed in song.

“It will not take a great deal of money, after all,” said Mrs. Jericho.

“How much?” asked her husband, with a blithe carelessness.

[Pg 48]

[Pg 48]

“I think a hundred pounds—because I want the girls on such an occasion to make a blow—I do almost think, yes I am nearly sure that a hundred pounds, for we must have a few trinkets, will do pretty well.”

“A hundred pounds, after all, isn’t much,” said Jericho, airily.

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