“ Can’t I! ” said Abbey, with infinite expression.

“No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law⁠—”

“ I am the law here, my man,” returned Miss Abbey, “and I’ll soon convince you of that, if you doubt it at all.”

“I never said I did doubt it at all, Miss Abbey.”

“So much the better for you.”

Abbey the supreme threw the customer’s halfpence into the till, and, seating herself in her fireside-chair, resumed the newspaper she had been reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The man on the other side of the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyed her as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace.