as I lurched out of the edifice I seemed to see
the clergyman shaking in the reading-desk, and
the clerk wagging to and fro beneath him; while
the hatchments and tablets shook on the walls;
and the organ in the gallery kept bumping
now against the charity boys, now against the
charity girls.

It wasn't vertigo: the head swims round
under that circumstance. It was clearly ague,
and of the very worst description; the body
shaking from right to left, and the blood surging
in the ears with fever.

At dinner-time—my agonies had never
ceased, but had not attracted notice—I began
literally to put my foot into it again. First,
handing Mrs. Van Plank of Sandwich down
to the dining-room—my uncle Bonsor escorted
Tilly—I entangled myself in the bugle ornaments
which that wealthy but obese woman
persisted in wearing; and we came down
together with alarming results. I was undermost,
shaking miserably, with Mrs. Van Plank's large
person pressing on my shirt-studs. When we were
assisted to rise she would not be appeased. She
would not join us at dinner. She ordered her
fly and returned to Sandwich, and as the
carriage drove away, Captain Standfast, R.N.,
looking at me as savagely as though he would
have liked to have me up at the gangway and
give me six dozen on the instant, said,

"There goes poor Tilly's diamond bracelet.
The old screw won't give it her now. I saw
the case on the cushion of the fly."

Was it my fault! could I help my lamentable
ague?

At dinner I went from bad to worse. Item:
I spilt two ladlefuls of mock turtle soup over a
new damask tablecloth. Item: I upset a glass
of Madeira over Mary Seaton's blue moire dress.
Item: in a convulsive fit of shaking, I nearly
stabbed Lieutenant Lamb, of the Fifty-fourth
Regiment, stationed on the Heights, with a silver
fork; and, finally, in a maniacal attempt to
carve a turkey, I sent the entire body or that
Christmas bird, with a garland of sausages clinging
ing to it, full butt into the responsible waistcoat
of my uncle Bonsor.

The peace was made somehow; I'm sure
I don't know in what manner, but half an hour
afterwards we were all very pleasant and talkative
over our dessert. When I say all, I of
course except my unhappy self. There had been
no solution of continuity in my shaking. Somebody,
I think, proposed my health. In returning
thanks, I hit the proposer a tremendous blow
under the left eye with my elbow. Endeavouring
to regain my equilibrium, I sent a full glass
of claret into the embroidered cambric bosom of
that unhappy Lieutenant Lamb. In desperation
I caught hold of the tablecloth with both hands.
I saw how it would be; the perfidious polished
mahogany slid away from my grasp. I turned
my foot frantically round the leg of the table
nearest me, and with a great crash over went
dining-table, cut-glass decanters, and dessert.
Lieutenant Lamb was badly hit across the bridge
of the nose with a pair of silver nut-crackers,
and my uncle Bonsor's head was crowned, in
quite a classic manner, with filberts and hot-
house grapes.

The bleak December sun rose next morning
upon ruin and catastrophe. As well as I can
collect my scattered reminiscences of that dismal
time, my offences against decorum were once
more condoned: not in consequence of my
complaint (in which my relatives and friends
persisted in disbelieving), but on the ground that it
was "only once a year." Lawyers came backwards
and forwards to Snargatestone Villa during
the forenoon. There was a great production of
tin boxes, red tape, blue seals, foolscap paper,
and parchment; and my uncle Bonsor was more
responsible than ever. They brought me a paper
to sign at last, whispering much among
themselves as they did so; and I protest that I could
see nothing but a large pool of white, jogging
about in a field of green tablecloth, while on
the paper an infinity of crabbed characters
seemed racing up and down in a crazed and
furious manner. I endeavoured to nerve myself
to the task of signing, I bit my lips, I clenched
my left hand, I tried to screw my wagging head on
to my neck, I cramped my toes up in my boots,
I held my breath; but was it my fault, when I
clutched the pen and tried to write my name,
that the abominable goosequill began to dance,
and skate, and leap, and plunge, and dig its
nibs into the paper; that when, in despair, I
seized the inkstand, to hold it nearer to the pen,
I shook its sable contents, in horrid, horned,
tasseled blots, all over a grave legal document?
I finished my achievement by inflicting a large
splash on my uncle's sacred waistcoat, and
hitting Captain Standfast under the third rib
with the pen.

"That will do," my papa-in-law cried, collaring
me. "Leave the house, scoundrel!"

But I broke from his grasp, and fled to the
drawing-room, knowing that my Tilly would be
there with her bridesmaids and her bonnets.

"Tilly — my adored Matilda!" I cried.

"No further explanation is needed, sir," broke
in my beloved, in an inexorable tone. "I have
seen and heard quite enough. Alfred Starling,
I would sooner wed the meanest hind that
gathers samphire on yon cliff than become the
bride of a profligate and drunkard. Go, sir;
repent if you can; be ashamed if you can.
Henceforth we are strangers. Slave of self-
indulgence, adieu for ever!" And she swept out
of the room, and I could hear her sobbing her
pretty heart out in the boudoir beyond.

I was discarded and expelled for ever from
Snargatestone Villa; my uncle Bonsor
repudiated me, and disinherited me from any share
in his waistcoat; I hurled myself into the next
train at the station, and shook all the way
back to town. At about dusk on that dreadful
Boxing-day, I found myself wandering and
jolting about the purlieus of Soho.

From Soho-square the south-west side, I
think—branches a shabby, dingy little court,
called Bateman's-buildings. I was standing
shivering at the corner of this ill-favoured place,