you'll call me back again before the door is
shut."

"And yet I don't know," resumed Mrs.
Smallchange, " the worst of haricot mutton
is that it always gives me the heartburn. I
think it's owing to the bits of turnip."

Here was an opportunity for any woman
but a cook to have suggested, " should she try
a haricot without turnips." Our artist was,
however, far too much absorbed in the study
of the habits of the sparrow (a specimen of
which tribe was now touching up his feathers
upon the sill of one of the upper windows of
the opposite building) to put forward this or
indeed any other elucidation of the
difficulty.

At length this view of the case seemed to
present itself to the distracted mind of Mrs.
Smallchange, who thereupon proceeded to
deliver herself as follows:

"Suppose we were to try a haricot without
turnips, cook." No answer from that functionary,
with the exception of an offensively
patient smile. So Mrs. Smallchange went
on, " And yet I don't know that that woiild
be of any use, for I rather suspect that
it's the grease that makes it disagree with
one."

This proved an unfortunate remark, and
the change on the part of the chef de cuisine,
who, from wearing an appearance of patience
which gave her a false air of Griselda,
suddenly appeared in the character of a much
injured but little enduring and retortive Fury,
was both remarkable—and to any one who
had been less expectant of it than I was—
instructive.

"Grease," with a short laugh, " grease—
well, it was the first time she'd ever heard of
grease in her cooking—which Mr. Swallowfat,
a true gentleman, at her very last place, he
sent down word to say as never in his life
had he seen cooking free from grease like
hers. And Mrs. Sparerib, which grease and
fat was good for her by the doctor's orders,
being in a fast decline, would hask her often,
saying, ' Your dishes, Jane, is hall so free
from fat that I shall never get no flesh upon
my bones with you for cook I knows'—but
what's the use of talking to them as doesn't
know their own opinions, and much less how
a dinner should come up. Why had she
ever come among such people, with Mr.
Swallowfat a begging her to stay, and Mrs.
Sparerib in strong hysterics when she left—
she might have know'd that them as couldn't
keep a cook a month was not the masters or
the missuses as she could live with—no."

"There now," said poor Mrs. Smallchange,
as the infuriate artist made her exit at the
conclusion of this remarkable speech, and
banged the door behind her, " that's a
specimen of how I'm served continually."

I expressed my sympathy as well as I could,
and promised, if I heard of a good cook, to
send her without delay to Mrs. Smallchange.
That lady then, with a happy versatility of
mind which was one of the characteristics of
her disposition, appeared to forget entirely
the unpleasant scene which had just taken
place, and turned at once to something else.

The investment that could not be settled,
and the servants that could not be kept, were
not the only domestic questions on which Mr.
and Mrs. Smallchange found a difficulty in
deciding. They had more room in their house
than they wanted; and doubts had beset them,
for months past, as to the propriety of increasing
their income, and their family circle,
by taking in a lodger. Having shown
myself so politely anxious to be of use in the
matter of the cook, I was now applied to on
the subject of this new perplexity. Anxiety
to escape as fast as possible from my
unexpected position of family adviser, led me
to give my opinion positively, without an
instant's consideration, in favour of letting
the spare apartments in the house—to a
single gentleman, of course. Profoundly
impressed by the instantaneous character of my
decision, Mrs. Smallchange agreed with me
on the spot. A single gentleman—yes, that
would be the very thing—she wondered she
had not thought of it before. And she was
so enamoured with the idea, that the housemaid
was sent to a neighbouring stationer's,
and before I was out of the house, a card,
with an announcement of Furnished
Apartments, was put up in the window.

The ultimate results of this proceeding
were, it must be acknowledged, as remarkable
as they were characteristic.

The single gentleman, to secure whom was
the object of Mrs. Smallchange's ambition, as
it is of all matrons who have lodgings to let,
turned up almost as soon as he was required,
and proved a most unexceptionable and
desirable specimen of his class. Punctual,
middle-aged, precise, and methodical in all
his habits, and rigidly exact in his payments.
He might be a little irritable and fussy
perhaps, at times, but we all have our faults.
Then—bless him—he had that wonderful
advantage that he was not too much at home.
His situation as clerk in the office ot a Canal
Company involving a daily absence from
home of eight hours' duration, as the clock
struck nine he left the house in the morning,
and at the moment when the hands pointed
on the dial to five in the afternoon his knock
—none of your latch-key lodgers this—was
heard at the door. When it has been further
stated that Mr. Pluffers, for that was his
name, was short and comfortable in figure,
and scrupulously neat in his attire, enough
has been said in description of this model
lodger.

Now, it will doubtless be asked how it was
that a person so precise and particular in his
ways as this gentleman, was contented to
remain in an establishment which one would
be prepared to believe would be so ill
conducted as that of our friend Mrs. Smallchange.
And this does at first sight appear