He says--" The little captain jerked round in his chair, escaping a gash by a hair's-breadth, and addressed the heavy citizen-- "Mr.Pomphlett, sir, it was not for the sake of listening to your observations upon public affairs that I came straight off my ship to this shop, but to hear the news." The barber coughed.

Mr.Pomphlett feebly traced a curve in the air with his pipe-stem, and answered sulkily-- "I s-said nun-nothing.

I f-felt unwell." "He suffers," interposed Mr.Pomphlett's neighbour on the settle, a long-necked man in brown, "from the wind; don't you, Pomphlett ?" Mr.Pomphlett nodded with an aggrieved air, and sucked his pipe.
"Death," continued the man in brown, by way of setting the conversation on its legs again, "has been busy in Harwich, Barker." "Ah! now we come to business! Barber, who's dead ?" "Alderman Croten, sir." "Tut-tut.

Croten gone ?" "Yes, sir; palsy took him at a ripe age.

And Abel's gone, the Town Crier; and old Mistress Pinch's bad leg carried her from us last Christmas Day, of all days in the year; and young Mr.Eastwell was snatched away by a chain-shot in the affair with the Smyrna fleet; and Mistress Salt--that was daughter of old Sir Jabez Tellworthy, and broke her father's heart--she's a widow in straitened circumstances, and living up at the old house again--" "_What!_" Captain Barker bounced off his chair like a dried pea from a shovel.
"There now! Your honour's chin is wounded." "P'sh! give me your towel." He snatched it from the barber's arm and mopped away the blood and lather from his jaw.