could forty years ago, but she can't discover that she is as deaf as a post."

The ringing of a bell announced that dinner was served before I had completed the arrangement of my hasty toilette; but I hurried to the room in which I had previously seen the table laid, and found that five clerks and Mrs. Chatterton had already taken their seats at it. A substantial piece of boiled beef and carrots smoked on the board, and a dish of potatoes flanked the opposite side.

"Gentlemen, this is Mr. Richard Wallingford, the new clerk,' said Mrs. Chatterton, and each of the five clerks looked inquiringly at the new comer, and nodded to me, but without speaking, their mouths being too full for speech. Mrs. Chatterton helped me to a substantial slice of beef, and added to it a supply of carrots that might have satisfied the most voracious appetite. "Gentlemen, how do you like your fare?" demanded she; a needless question, as the avidity with which the huge slices disappeared from each plate save mine, bore ample testimony to the approval of the dinner. "I hope, young gentleman, you like your beef? Our butcher is considered one of the best in Leadenhall-market, and my mode of having it boiled has always given the greatest satisfaction."

"You need not give yourself the trouble to scream yourself hoarse by attempting to make the old lady hear," said a young man whose dress, air and manner indicated a desire of being considered a smart, if not a pretty man too, but whom nature had wholly unfitted for enacting the part.

1

"What does Mr. Bingly say?" asked Mrs. Chatterton, "something civil I am sure." The simplicity and goodness indicated by the question set the table in a roar, while the said Mr. Bingly, moving his lips as if speaking, looked at Mrs. Chatterton as though he was addressing her, a piece of mockery that still more increased the laughter of the junior portion of the party.

"I see you are all laughing; and I dare say something pleasant has been said, but strange to say, I have only caught a word here and there in all that Mr. Bingly has uttered. I wish people would speak a little louder. When I was young, every one spoke louder, and I never used to miss a word of what was said."

The beef and vegetables having been removed by a stout and active maiden who acted in the capacity of cook and parlourmaid, a huge wedge of Cheshire cheese, flanked by a foaming tankard of ale, was placed on the table, and the glasses of the party being filled from it, Mrs. Chatterton proposed the health of the firm.

"I have drunk this same toast, young gentleman, for forty

years, and make a point that it should be drank here every day. And a good right we have to drink the health of the firm, for there is not a better in the city of London."

Mr. Bingly now taking his glass in hand, looked respectfully at Mrs. Chatterton, and bowing his head to her, gravely said"I heartily wish, old Mother Chatterbox, that you, and your everlasting pieces of beef and dry cheese, only fit to bait mousetraps with, were far away," and he raised the glass of ale to his lips.

"Thank you, Mr. Bingly, you are always polite, I must say," and elevating the glass to her mouth, "I wish you the same."

The happiest repartee ever uttered by a wit, never produced more laughter than did the answer of Mrs. Chatterton, who again expressed her desire that people would speak as loud as they did when she was young. Of the four other clerks seated round the board, two were elderly men, of grave and reserved manners, and two were about the age of Mr. Bingly, whose style of dress and behaviour, they evidently emulated. They waited to see whether he would patronize the new comer, before they extended any friendly encouragement to me, while the two elderly clerks seemed scarcely conscious of my pre

sence.

"I am for the play," said Mr. Bingly, if you like to go, Mr. what did you say your name was?"

"Wallingford," answered I.

"I'll conduct you."

"I am obliged to you, but I prefer remaining at home." "You are right, young man,-yes, quite right," observed the two elderly clerks, and they looked graciously at me.

"What! not desire to see Miss Tree, and Kean, or Miss Helen Faucit and Macready? 'Pon my soul! the acting of these great stars quite electrifies me. They are fine creatures."

"What do you think of the acting in the early scenes, Bingly?" asked one of the elderly clerks.

"Think! why very fine, monstrous fine to be sure, but why do you ask?"

Because, as you only go at the half-price, I thought it likely you may never have seen them."

A laugh on the part of Bingly's imitators followed this remark.

"If I were you, I would for once put together the sums for two admissions of half-price, and see the whole piece, if only just for the novelty of the thing."

66

Ha, ha! not so bad, 'pon my soul, not so bad!" and Bingly affected to laugh.

The table being now cleared, I rose to seek my bed-room, for the purpose of arranging my clothes and books, and having placed them in order, and written a letter to my friend Percy Mortimer, I returned to the sitting-room, where I found the two elderly clerks busily engaged in a game of chess, Mrs. Chatterton knitting, and two of the young men occupied in reading two well-thumbed and soiled novels, from the next circulating library. Mr. Bingly had gone out.

If you wish to converse, Mr. Wallingford," said Mrs. Chatterton, "I will have great pleasure in a little sociable chat with you; but I must beg of you to speak louder."

A suppressed titter from the young men, marked that they were not so deeply interested in the novels they were perusing, as not to be aware of what was going on in the room.

"You see Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Burton," continued Mrs. Chatterton, "playing chess at the same table, and on the same board where they have played for the last forty years. Night after night there they are, never weary. I wonder they can go on for so many years without being tired of it."

"Well, that's a good'un, however," said one of the young men," when here has she been knitting stockings, day after day and night after night, for nearly as long a period as they have played chess; yet she wonders they can be amused with their game.'

"It is wonderful how time flies," resumed Mrs. Chatterton, "and so I often think, when I look over and see Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Burton seated in the same spot, and engaged in the same amusement year after year; and, would you believe it, Mr. Wallingford, it sometimes seems to me as if it was impossible that it could be thirty-five years since I first saw them sitting there, every thing appears so exactly the same, except that people don't speak so loud? When we always do the same things, and at the same hours, it makes the time pass quite pleasantly, though I can't get Mr. Bingly to think so. Ah, well! he'll come to my opinion when he grows older,—that he will. Doing the same thing at the same hours, keeps people young much longer, I can tell you. Why, I declare, except that Mr. Murdoch has lost all his hair, and his front teeth, and is grown so very corpulent, I don't see much change in him; and, as for Mr. Burton, only that he wears that light-coloured wig, instead of having his head nearly bald, as it was when I first saw him, and his having lost his flesh and got lame, he is just the same man he used to be thirty-five years ago. I, too, am very little changed. Indeed, my friends tell me they don't sce the least alteration, which shows what a fine thing it is to be always doing the same thing. Up at six in the summer, and seven in the winter-off to Leadenhall-market thrice a-week

in winter, and every day in summer, by eight in the morning; home by nine-breakfast on the table by five minutes after. In the kitchen to look about dinner at ten-see the rooms are perfectly cleaned at half-past ten-scold Kitty. Look over the linen at eleven, repair whatever may require mending. Read the Morning Post at twelve, and at one o'clock sit down comfortably to my knitting. At two, Kitty brings me a mouthful of cold meat, a slice of bread, and a glass of beer; and, at half-post two, I take up my knitting again until dinner-time, after which the evening passes just the same as you see. O! it's a great blessing to have the time pass so pleasantly,-is n't it, Mr. Richard? I dare say you were very sorry to leave your village, because you knew every face and step around the place, and every one knew you? Now, the city of London seems to me to be my village. I know every shop, and every owner of a shop, from Mincing-lane to Leadenhall-market-ay, and in the market too, I know most of the folk, and they know me : and you could not feel more strange in the streets to-morrow, than I should were I to find myself in the village where I was born."

"He's fairly in for it," said one of the young clerks to the other. "I'll be blessed if she aint coming to her visit to her native village you'll see she'll tell him the whole story." "He'll never be such a spoony as to sit listening to it," answered the other.

"But you heard nearly the half of it."

Ay, that was because I was a stranger, and not up to the old girl's long yarns."

"You were a stranger, and she took you in," whispered the other, loud enough to be heard by me, who felt somewhat abashed at finding myself considered as a victim to the garrulous Mrs. Chatterton, although the evident good-nature of the old lady induced me to lend her, what it was plain she received as a compliment, a patient hearing. Tea being now served by the active Kitty, who, with it, brought a supply of buttered muffins, that might have satiated the appetite of a Dando; Mrs. Chatterton busied herself in pouring out the "beverage that cheers, but not inebriates," the steams of which sent up a grateful odour. Even the chess-players left their game, and Messrs. Thomas and Wilson, their well-thumbed novels, to partake this evening repast; and when I saw the rapidity with which muffin after muffin disappeared, and cup after cup was replenished, I no longer felt surprised at the copious supply provided by the indefatigable Kitty. At half-past ten o'clock, the party retired to their separate chambers, but not before Mrs. Chatterton reminded me, that at five minutes after nine, breakfast would be on the table.

CHAPTER III.

WHEN I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to find, on opening my window, that a dense yellow fog precluded the possibility of seeing any object from it save a few tall chimnies crowned by lurid-coloured, conical-shaped pots, rising from the mis-shapen roofs of the adjacent houses. Nothing could be more gloomy than the prospect of this "darkness visible," offering a dreary contrast to the wide-stretching domain of Oak Park, with its huge old trees, beneath which the deer loved to nestle, and the sleek cows and snowy fleeced sheep cropped their daily food. The density of the atmosphere impeded the freedom of my respiration, and damped the natural tone of cheerfulness of my mind, but I soon reasoned myself into better spirits; and when I entered the eating-room, received the matinal greetings of Mrs. Chatterton, with assumed if not real cheerfulness.

"What weather! there never was any thing like it," said Mr. Murdoch.

"So you have said every similar day for the last thirty-five years, and we have had many such days," replied Mr. Burton. "Would you believe it, I was obliged to pay a link-boy to light me home last night?" observed Mr. Bingly; "and in the theatre, the fog was so thick that one could not see across the house.'

"You are finding fault with the butter again, Mr. Bingly," said Mrs. Chatterton; "but it's no use, there is no better to be had at present, I can tell you."

"Not I," answered Mr. Bingly, "I'm tired of finding fault. I really believe the old woman's nose is as blunt to the sense of smelling as her ears are to that of hearing; for if she could smell, we should not have such stuff as this," pointing to the pat of butter to which he had helped himself.

Messrs. Thomas and Wilson were too busily occupied in discussing the toast, and washing it down with large cups of tea, to join in the remarks, rather than conversation of the other clerks.

At length, the morning meal being concluded, and Mr. Murdoch having looked at his huge silver watch (which resembled a turnip in form and size), he announced that the moment was arrived for entering the office, to which he led the way. The apartment was of considerable dimensions, and along it was ranged a long line of counters, with desks, before which stood high stools, waiting their daily occupants. Mr. Murdoch pointed out the one designed for me, and I seated myself before a huge