[Illustration]
"Ha, Mrs. MACSTOGGINS, and are we in your debt again?" asked the Agent
of a beetle-browed woman of a sinister and forbidding expression, who
was thrusting a paper across the counter to the cashier.
"Yes; and I'll trouble you not to keep me waiting, either--seeing that
it's gone three days since the burial."
"Is this woman demanding the insurance money for the burial of her own
child?" asked _Mr. Punch_, sternly. And he turned his ring. "And pray,
Madam," he continued, addressing the beetle-browed woman, "tell me the
truth."
"Certainly," replied the woman, as if in a trance. "First, I insured
my own KATE--then I starved her to death, and took the money. Then
little BILL followed. I let him catch cold in the winter, and gave
him a night or two on the stones, and that finished him. Then came TIM
FLAHERTY, and I managed him with the beetle-poison, and--"
"Come," said _Mr. Punch_, taking Father TIME's arm once more; "let us
get out of this--I can't breathe here."
Scarcely had they quitted the place ere they had to encounter an
appeal for custom, the Applicant being apparently one of the big guns
in the Mercury wine trade, and he was not long in importuning _Mr.
Punch_ just to step inside his office, and sample a delicious Lafitte
of the 1874 vintage.
"Now, try that, Sir," he said, at the same time offering _Mr.
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