suppose these trousers to be much frayed at
the bottom, much inked (he makes calculations
on their knees frequently), and much
too short, and conclude them with Wellington
boots patched till they resembled that
knight's silk stockings that were darned so
frequently that they changed their texture
from silk to worsted—and you have
Mumchance before you, all but his shamble, his
watery eye, his rich though somewhat husky
voice.

For all his shabby appearance, however,
once a year Mumchance throws aside his
chrysalis garb, and comes forth a full-blown
butterfly. Once a year he dines with his
Company—the Stationers—at the grand old
hall in the dim regions of the city; for
Mumchance is a citizen, a liveryman, a
worshipful stationer—who but he—and so was
Toby his father before him. He goes to the
dinner of his company, clean, rosy, shaven,
with a shirt, aye, and a shirt frill, a blue coat
and gilt buttons, but new, glossy, well brushed,
a shiny hat, and shiny boots. Thus he goes;
but how he comes back no inhabitant of
Tattyboys Rents has ever been able to
discover. The policeman should know; but
he affects ignorance; and though I do not
wish to impute corruption to that functionary,
it is certain that Mumchance is always leaving
private drains of liquor at the bar of
the Cape of Good Hope, for at least a week
following his Company's dinner.

Some of the renters have affirmed that
they have heard with the chimes at
midnight dismal ditties trolled forth in incoherent
accents; and these are surmised to have
issued from Mumchance while in a state of
conviviality, and to have been occult Stationers'
songs, taught him along with the other arts
and mysteries of the worshipful craft in his
earliest youth. Mrs. Mumchance (an elongated
female of an uncertain age, with a vexed cap
and a perturbed gown) is a lady with a fixed
idea. That idea is Fisher. Fisher, whether
he be the family doctor, lawyer, nearest kinsman,
dearest friend, or most valued adviser,
is at all events Mrs. Mumchance's Law and
Prophet. Fisher recommends her change of
air. Fisher has inexorably prophesied her
dissolution within six calendar mouths, if she;
continues worreting herself about her family.
Fisher warned her against the second floor
lodger, who ran away without paying his
rent. Fisher advises her to stand it no
longer with Mr. Mumchance's recalcitrant
debtors, but to employ Barwise, and summons;
them all forthwith. When Fisher said Mrs.
Mumchance, said he, beware of Mrs.
Tuckstrap, were not those the words of truth?;
On all emergencies, in all difficulties and;
dilemmas, Mrs. Mumchance throws herself
upon Fisher. He is intimately mixed up
with the whole family. Mumchance professes
the highest respect and veneration, for him.
Mr. Fisher, he says, a man of the tirst, of
the very lirst. Coat buttoned up to here, sir.
Great friend of poor fathers, sir. Frequently
does he escape curtain lectures on late and
vinous returns to his Lares and Penates on
the plea that he has been along with Fisher.
If you ask Charley, Mumchance's youngest,
who his godfather was, he will answer,
"Missa Fisser;" if you ask him who or what
Missa Fisser, or Fisher may be, he will
answer, a "chown;" from which, however, it
is not to be inferred absolutely that Fisher is
connected with the stage in a red ochre and
bismuth view as a clown; Charley's ideas of
trades and professions being necessarily vague
as yet; and his whole bump of admiration
having been so engrossed by a pantomimic
performance of which he was lately the
spectator, that he applies the epithet chown,
or clown, to everything great, or good, or
pleasant; being even known to address as
chown, horses, sweet stuif, hoopsticks, fenders,
and halfpence.

I never had the pleasure of seeing Fisher;
but Mrs. Brush, the oldest inhabitant, has
seen him, and describes him as a pleasant
spoken body. Mrs. Spileburg, of the Cape
of Good Hope, declares him to be a born
gentleman, as takes his drink quite hearty,
like which it would do you good to see. I
should like to know Fisher,

Mumchance has an indefinite number of
children. I say indefinite, for they are always
being born and going out to service, and
walking out with Tom or Dick So and So,
and marrying, and so on. There is always,
however, an eldest daughter Annie, tall,
lanky, and fourteen, who must begin to do
something for herself shortly, and a youngest
boy, at present Charley; but the whole
family have such a curious way of shooting
up and growing into maturity suddenly, that
I should not be at all surprised on my next
visit to the Rents to learn that Annie was
suckling her second, or that Charley had
enlisted in the Life Guards.

Mumchance's trade and manner of doing
business, puzzle and amaze me sorely. Men
repute him to be wealthy: I know he spends
a great deal of money, yet I seldom see him
sell anything more considerable than a
haporth of slate pencil, a sheet of writing
paper, a penn'orth of wafers, or a penny
bottle of ink. The man who could purchase
a quire of foolscap, or half gross of steel pens,
was never yet known, I opine, to enter
Mumchance's. He tries to force the market
sometimes, and to create a factitious excitement
about his wares, by displaying in front of his
establishment placards in pen and ink,
containing such announcements as Cheapest
wafers in the world! Paper down again!
Great news! Ink a penny a bottle; but the
passers-by regard these notifications irreverently,
and point to the inferior quality of the
paper and ink of the placard, in depreciatlon
of the stationery within: nay, even
raise objections against Mumchance's pens,
because Mumchance's writing is none of the