by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to
put a lively face upon it; but,' I says, 'I have
been accustomed to take my wine in at the
pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts
different. It acts depressing. It's one thing,
gentlemen,' I says to Pebbleson Nephew, 'to
charge your glasses in a dining-room with a
Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every
One, and it's another thing to be charged
yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cellar
and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the
difference betwixt bubbles and wapours,' I tells
Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I've been
a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully
given to the business. What's the consequence?
I'm as muddled a man as lives—you
won't find a muddleder man than me—nor yet
you won't find my equal in molloncolly. Sing
of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you
sprinkle, O'er the brow of care, Smooths away
a wrinkle? Yes. P'raps so. But try filling
yourself through the pores, underground, when
you don't want to it!"

"I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even
thought that you might join a singing-class in
the house."

"Me, sir? No, no, Young Master Wilding,
you won't catch Joey Ladle, muddling the
Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I
am capable of proving myself, out of my
cellars; but that you're welcome to, if you
think it's worth your while to keep such a
thing on your premises."

"I do, Joey."

"Say no more, sir. The Business's word is my
law. And you're a going to take Young Master
George Vendale partner into the old Business?"

"I am, Joey."

"More changes, you see! But don't change
the name of the Firm again. Don't do it,
Young Master Wilding. It was bad luck
enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better
by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that
good luck always stuck to. You should never
change luck when it's good, sir."

"At all events, I have no intention of
changing the name of the House again, Joey."

"Glad to hear it, and wish you good day,
Young Master Wilding. But you had better by
half," muttered Joey Ladle, inaudibly, as he
closed the door and shook his head, "have let
the name alone from the first. You had better
by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it."

ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER.

The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room
next morning, to receive the personal applicants
for the vacant post in his establishment.
It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the
panels ornamented with festoons of flowers
carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn
Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furniture,
all of which had seen service and polish
under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard
had assisted at many business-dinners given by
Pebbleson Nephew to their connexion, on the
principle of throwing sprats overboard to catch
whales; and Pebbleson Nephew's comprehensive
three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the
whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch
beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellaret
that had in its time held many a dozen of
Pebbleson Nephew's wine. But the little rubicund
old bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait
was over the sideboard (and who could
easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and
decidedly not Nephew), had retired into
another sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had
grown as cold as he. So, the golden and
black griffins that supported the candelabra,
with black balls in their mouths at the end of
gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they
had lost all heart for playing at ball, and
were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the
Missionary line of inquiry, whether they had
not earned emancipation by this time, and were
not griffins and brothers?

Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer
morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner.
The light and warmth pierced in at the open
windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady
hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other
decoration of the walls.

"My mother at five-and-twenty," said Mr.
Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically
followed the light to the portrait's face, "I
hang up here, in order that visitors may admire
my mother in the bloom of her youth and
beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in the
seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance
sacred to me. Oh! It's you, Jarvis!"

These latter words he addressed to a clerk
who had tapped at the door, and now looked in.

"Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that
it's gone ten, sir, and that there are several
females in the Counting-House."

"Dear me!" said the wine-merchant, deepening
in the pink of his complexion and whitening
in the white, "are there several? So many as
several? I had better begin before there are
more. I'll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the
order of their arrival."

Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair
at the table behind a great inkstand, having
first placed a chair on the other side of the
table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered
on his task with considerable trepidation.

He ran the gauntlet that must be run on
any such occasion. There were the usual
species of profoundly unsympathetic women,
and the usual species of much too sympathetic
women. There were buccaneering widows who
came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas
under their arms, as if each umbrella were he,
and each griper had got him. There were
towering maiden ladies who had seen better days,
and who came armed with clerical testimonials
to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with
his keys. There were gentle maiden ladies who
came to marry him. There were professional
housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers,
who put him through his domestic exercise,
instead of submitting themselves to catechism.
There were languid invalids to whom salary was