little stooping blear-eyed old men of cheerful
countenance, and they hobble up and down the
court-yard wagging their chins and talking
together quite gaily. This has given offence, and
has, moreover, raised the question whether they
are justified in passing any other windows than
their own. Mr. Battens, however, permitting
them to pass his windows, on the disdainful
ground that their imbecility almost amounts to
irresponsibility, they are allowed to take their
walk in peace. They live next door to one another,
and take it by turns to read the newspaper aloud
(that is to say, the newest newspaper they can
get), and they play cribbage at night. On warm
and sunny days they have been known to go so
far as to bring out two chairs and sit by the iron
railings, looking forth; but this low conduct
being much remarked upon throughout Titbull's,
they were deterred by an outraged public opinion
from repeating it. There is a rumour—but it
may be malicious—that they hold the memory
of Titbull in some weak sort of veneration, and
that they once set off together on a pilgrimage
to the parish churchyard to find his tomb. To
this, perhaps, might be traced a general
suspicion that they are spies of " the gentlemen:" to
which they were supposed to have given colour in
my own presence on the occasion of the weak
attempt at justification of the pump by the
gentlemen's clerk; when they emerged bare-
headed from the doors of their dwellings, as if
their dwellings and themselves constituted an
old-fashioned weather-glass of double action with
two figures of old ladies inside, and deferentially
bowed to him at intervals until he took his
departure. They are understood to be perfectly
friendless and relationless. Unquestionably
the two poor fellows make the very best of their
lives in Titbull's Alms-Houses, and
unquestionably they are (as before mentioned) the
subjects of unmitigated contempt there.

On Saturday nights, when there is a greater
stir than usual outside, and when itinerant
vendors of miscellaneous wares even take their
stations and light up their smoky lamps before the
iron railings, Titbull's becomes flurried. Mrs.
Saggers has her celebrated palpitations of the
heart, for the most part on Saturday nights.
But Titbull's is unfit to strive with the uproar
of the streets in any of its phases. It is
religiously believed at Titbull's that people push
more than they used, and likewise that the
foremost object of the population of England and
Wales is to get you down and trample on you.
Even of railroads they know, at Titbull's, little
more than the shriek (which Mrs. Saggers says
goes through her, and ought to betaken up by
Government); and the penny postage may even
yet be unknown there, for I have never seen a
letter delivered to any inhabitant. But there is
a tail straight sallow lady resident in Number
Seven, Titbull's, who never speaks to anybody,
who is surrounded by a superstitious halo of lost
wealth, who does her household work in house
maid's gloves, and who is secretly much deferred
to, though openly cavilled at; and it has
obscurely leaked out that this old lady has a
son, grandson, nephew, or other relative, who
is "a Contractor," and who would think it
nothing of a job to knock down Titbull's, pack
it off into Cornwall, and knock it together again.
An immense sensation was made by a gipsy-
party calling in a spring van, to take this old
lady up to go for a day's pleasure into Epping
Forest, and notes were compared as to which of
the company was the son, grandson, nephew, or
other relative, the Contractor. A thick-set
personage with a white hat and a cigar in his
mouth, was the favourite: though as Titbull's
had no other reason to believe that the Con
tractor was there at, all, than that this man was
supposed to eye the chimney-stacks as if he
would like to knock them down and cart them
off, the general mind was much unsettled in
arriving at a conclusion. As a way out of this
difficulty, it concentrated itself on the acknow
ledged Beauty of the party, every stitch in whose
dress was verbally unripped by the old ladies then
and there, and whose " goings on" with another
and a thinner personage in a white hat might have
suffused the pump (where they were principally
discussed) with blushes, for months afterwards.
Herein Titbull's was to Titbull's true, for it has
a constitutional dislike of all strangers. As
concerning innovations and improvements, it is
always of opinion that what it doesn't want
itself, nobody ought to want. But I think I
have met with this opinion outside Titbull's.

Of the humble treasures of furniture brought
into Titbull's by the inmates when they establish
themselves in that place of contemplation for
the rest of their days, by far the greater and
more valuable part belongs to the ladies. I
may claim the honour of having either crossed
the threshold, or looked in at the door, of
every one of the nine ladies, and I have
noticed that they are all particular in the
article of bedsteads, and maintain favourite and
long-established bedsteads and bedding, as a
regular part of their rest. Generally an
antiquated chest of drawers is among their cherished
possessions; a tea-tray always is. I know of
at least two rooms in which a little tea-kettle
of genuine burnished copper, vies with the cat
in winking at the fire; and one old lady has a
tea-urn set forth in state on the top of her
chest of drawers, which urn is used .is her
library, and contains four duodecimo volumes,
and a black-bordered newspaper giving an
account of the funeral of Her Royal Highness the
Princess Charlotte. Among the poor old gentle
men there are no such niceties. Their furniture
has the air of being contributed, like some obso
lete Literary Miscellany, " by several hands;"
their few chairs never match; old patchwork co
verlets linger among them; and they have an
untidy habit of keeping their wardrobes in hat-
boxes. When I recal one old gentleman who
is rather choice in his shoe-brushes and blacking-
bottle, I have summed up the domestic elegances
of that side of the building.

On the occurrence of a death in Titbull's, it is
invariably agreed among the survivors—and it
is the only subject on which they do agree—