On the particular occasion of which I have now
to speak, I had, however, other communings to
look forward to, besides those in which nature
takes her silent yet eloquent part. I loved
Aha!—Love—Woman—Vertigo—Despair—I
beg your pardon—I will be calm. I loved
Miss Nuttlebury. Miss Nuttlebury lived in the
neighbourhood of Dartford (at a convenient
distance from the Powder-Mills), so in the
neighbourhood of Dartford (rather further from
the Powder-Mills) I determined to spend my
vacation. I made arrangements at a certain
small roadside inn for my board and lodging.

I was acquainted—nay, I was on friendly
terms—with the Nuttleburys. Mr. Nuttlebury,
a land surveyor in a rather small way,
was an old friend of my father's; so I had access
to the house. I had access also, as I thought,
to the heart of Mary, which was Miss Nuttlebury's
name. If I was mistaken—Aha!—but I
am again premature. You are aware, or perhaps
you are not aware, that my name is Oliver
Cromwell Shrubsole—so called after the great
Protector of British rights; the man who, or rather
but for whom—but I am again premature, or
rather, I should say, on the whole the reverse.

The first days of my residence near Fordleigh,
the name of the village where the Nuttleburys
dwelt, were happy in the extreme. I saw much
of Mary. I walked with Mary, made hay with
Mary, observed the moon in Mary's society,
and in vain sought to interest Mary in those
mysterious shadows which diversify the surface of
that luminary. I subsequently endeavoured to
interest the fair girl in other matters nearer
home—in short, in myself; and I fondly
imagined that I succeeded in doing so.

One day, when I had dropped in at the family
dinner-hour—not from base motives, for I was
boarded at my inn by contract—I found the
family conversing on a subject which caused me
considerable uneasiness. At the moment of my
arrival, Mr. Nuttlebury was uttering these
words:

"At what time will he be here, then?"
(He?)

I listened breathless, after the first salutation
had passed, for more; I was not long in
ascertaining that "he" was a cousin of Mary's, who
was coming down to spend some days at
Fordleigh, and whose arrival was anticipated by the
whole family with expressions of delight. The
younger boy and girl Nuttleburys seemed to be
especially rapturous at the prospect of the
Beast's arrival, and from this I augured ill.
Altogether, I felt that there was a trying scene
coming; that my opportunities of converse with
my soul's idol would be fewer than they had
been, and that general discomfort and misery
were about to ensue. I was right.

Oho!—I beg your pardon—I will be calm.

The Beast, "He," arrived in the course of
that very afternoon, and I believe I am not
speaking too strongly in affirming that we—" he"
and I—hated each other cordially from the first
moment of our exchanging glances. He was
an under-hand looking beast, short of stature;
such a creature as any high-souled woman should
have abhorred the sight of; but his prospects
were good, he having some small situation in the
Custom-house, on the strength of which, he gave
himself airs, as if he was a member of the
government; and when he talked of the country,
he spoke of it as "we." Alas! how could I
compete with him? What could I talk about,
except the fur-trade, and the best method of
keeping the moths under? So, having nothing
to talk about, I remained sulky and glum and
silent: a condition in which a man does not
usually tell to advantage in society. I felt that I
was not telling to advantage, and this made me
hate the beast—whose disgusting name was
Huffell—more cordially than before. It affords
me a gloomy pleasure to think that I never once
lost an opportunity of contradicting him—flat
—in the course of that first evening. But,
somehow or other, he generally got the best of
it: possibly because I had contradicted him for
the sake of doing so, and without bestowing a
thought upon the rights or wrongs of the matter
under discussion. But the worst of it was, that
it did appear to me, that Mary—my Mary—
seemed to be on the side of Huffell. Her eyes
would brighten—or I thought so—when he
triumphed. And what right had she to go and
fig herself out like that, in all her finery for
Huffell? She never did so for me.

"This must be put a stop to, and promptly,"
I muttered to myself, as I walked back to my
inn in a state of the most intense fury. And
to leave him there with the field all to himself!
What might he not be saying of me at that
moment? Turning me into ridicule, perhaps?
I resolved to crush him next day, or perish in
the attempt.

Next day I lay in wait for him, and
presently I thought my opportunity had come:

"WE shall have to make some change about
that appointment of Sir Cornelius," said Huffell,
"or he'll have all his family in the office in a
week."

"What do you mean by ' we?' " I asked, with
ferocious emphasis.

"I mean government," he answered, coolly.

"Well but you're not government," was my
dignified reply. " The Custom-house, even as
represented by those who hold high positions
in it, has as little to do with governing the
country as can well be imagined. The higher
officials in the Custom-house, are at best rather
government servants than government advisers,
while the lower—"

"Well, sir, ' the lower?'"

"The less they try to connect themselves
with their betters by talking about ' we,' the
better for all parties." I said this in a scathing
manner, and feeling painfully warm in the forehead.

"You're talking about what you don't understand,
sir," said the exciseman, or the tide-waiter,
or whatever he was. " We're all in the same boat .
Pray do you never say 'we' when talking of
your master's shop?"

"Master's shop, sir?"