You would little believe, my honoured friend, that in this lonely seclusion, I cannot at all times prohibit my thoughts from wandering to that gay world of London, which, during my tarry therein, occupied them in so partial a degree. You smile, my friend, nevertheless it is true; and when you reflect that I dwelt in the western department of the metropolis, near unto the noble mansion of Somerset House, and consequently in the very centre of what the idle call Fashion, you will not be so surprised at the occasional migration of my thoughts."
Here the worthy Clutterbuck paused and sighed slightly. "Do you farm or cultivate your garden," said I; "they are no ignoble nor unclassical employments?"
"Unhappily," answered Clutterbuck, "I am inclined to neither; my chest pains me with a sharp and piercing pang when I attempt to stoop, and my respiration is short and asthmatic; and, in truth, I seldom love to stir from my books and papers. I go with Pliny to his garden, and with Virgil to his farm; those mental excursions are the sole ones I indulge in; and when I think of my appetite for application, and my love of idleness, I am tempted to wax proud of the propensities which reverse the censure of Tacitus on our German ancestors, and incline so fondly to quiet, while they turn so restlessly from sloth."
Here the speaker was interrupted by a long, low, dry cough, which penetrated me to the heart. 'Alas!' thought I, as I heard it, and looked upon my poor friend's hectic and hollow cheek, 'it is not only his mind that will be the victim to the fatality of his studies.'
It was some moments before I renewed the conversation, and I had scarcely done so before I was interrupted by the entrance of Benjamin Jeremiah, with a message from his aunt that dinner would be ready in a few minutes. Another long whisper to Christopher succeeded. The ci-devant fellow of Trinity looked down at his garments with a perplexed air. I saw at once that he had received a hint on the propriety of a change of raiment. To give him due leisure for this, I asked the youth to shew me a room in which I might perform the usual ablutions previous to dinner, and followed him upstairs to a comfortless sort of dressing-room, without a fire-place, where I found a yellow were jug and basin, and a towel, of so coarse a huckaback, that I did not dare adventure its rough texture next my complexion--my skin is not made for such rude fellowship. While I was tenderly and daintily anointing my hands with some hard water, of no Blandusian spring, and that vile composition entitled Windsor soap, I heard the difficult breathing of poor Clutterbuck on the stairs, and soon after he entered the adjacent room. Two minutes more, and his servant joined him, for I heard the rough voice of the domestic say, "There is no more of the wine with the black seal left, Sir!"
"No more, good Dixon; you mistake grievously. I had two dozen not a week since."
"Don't know, I'm sure, Sir!" answered Dixon, with a careless and half impertinent accent; "but there are great things, like alligators, in the cellar, which break all the bottles!"
"Alligators in my cellar!" said the astonished Clutterbuck.
"Yes, Sir--at least a venomous sort of reptile like them, which the people about here call efts!"
"What!" said Clutterbuck, innocently, and evidently not seeing the irony of his own question; "What! have the efts broken two dozen bottles in a week? Of an exceeding surety, it is strange that a little creature of the lizard species should be so destructive--perchance they have an antipathy to the vinous smell; I will confer with my learned friend, Dr. Dissectall, touching their strength and habits. Bring up some of the port, then, good Dixon."
"Yes, Sir. All the corn is out; I had none for the gentleman's horse."
"Why, Dixon, my memory fails me strangely, or I paid you the sum of four pounds odd shillings for corn on Friday last."
"Yes, Sir: but your cow and the chickens eat so much, and then blind Dobbin has four feeds a day, and Farmer Johnson always puts his horse in our stable, and Mrs. Clutterbuck and the ladies fed the jackass the other day in the hired donkeychaise; besides, the rats and mice are always at it."
"It is a marvel unto me," answered Clutterbuck, "how detrimental the vermin race are; they seem to have noted my poor possessions as their especial prey; remind me that I write to Dr. Dissectall to-morrow, good Dixon."
"Yes, Sir, and now I think of it--" but here Mr. Dixon was cut short in his items, by the entrance of a third person, who proved to be Mrs. Clutterbuck.
"What, not dressed yet, Mr. Clutterbuck; what a dawdler you are!--and do look--was ever woman so used? you have wiped your razor upon my nightcap- -you dirty, slovenly--"
"I crave you many pardons; I own my error!" said Clutterbuck, in a nervous tone of interruption.
"Error, indeed!" cried Mrs. Clutterbuck, in a sharp, overstretched, querulous falsetto, suited to the occasion: "but this is always the case- -I am sure, my poor temper is tried to the utmost--and Lord help thee, idiot! you have thrust those spindle legs of yours into your coat-sleeves instead of your breeches!"
"Of a truth, good wife, your eyes are more discerning than mine; and my legs, which are, as you say, somewhat thin, have indued themselves in what appertaineth not unto them; but for all that, Dorothea, I am not deserving of the epithet of idiot, with which you have been pleased to favour me; although my humble faculties are indeed of no eminent or surpassing order--"
"Pooh! pooh! Mr.