he was very nearly the cause of depriving you of Captain Ormond's proposal."

"Stay," he said, gently replacing it, "I think, as a countryman of mine once said, that I can satisfactorily refute the charge brought against me, by prov- I merely said I did not wish to slight an old ing myself another person! I have a younger bro- neighbour; but in my heart I felt assured that I ther, who is in the army as well as myself: he holds owed a peculiar obligation to Mr. Burrows; that his the same rank, and consequently he is generally unintentional blunder had been the means of repairknown as Captain Ormond; he is just engaged to ing those of my family, and that the disentanglement Julia Mapleton, and although I will not tell you that of my person, mind, and manners from their gala you will find her so charming a young lady as your-garb, and restoration to their easy every-day simpliself, I can venture to say that you will like her very city, had been the real cause of procuring for me all much as a sister-in-law, should you ever decide on the happiness of an union of hearts, and all the adadmitting her to that honour by accepting the offer vantages of "an eligible match!" of my hand."

I need not detail the rest of our conversation; in about an hour we returned home. My mother was in the hall.

"How can you stay out so late, Eva?" she said indignantly; "you will certainly take cold!"

Captain Ormond interrupted her by asking to speak in private with Mr. Warwick; she told him he would find him in the library, and then took her away to the drawing-room, followed by me, and saying angrily

"I wonder what business engaged men have to want private interviews with fathers of families!" I quickly reconciled her to the liberty Captain Ormond had taken, by informing her of his business; she eagerly embraced me.

"I congratulate you, dear Eva," she said, " on an alliance quite equal to my expectations for you, and I hope Arabella will profit by your good example; I must say, however, it is a wonder to me how the matter has been brought about!"

"So it is to me," said I; and I spoke with perfect sincerity.

MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.

[Accompanying Part 26 of the English Edition, completing one volume, is the following Dedication and Preface.]

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR: Let me have my Pleasures of Memory in connection with this book, by dedicating it to a Poet whose writings (as all the world knows) are replete with generous and earnest feeling; and to a man whose daily life (as all the world does not know) is one of active sympathy with the poorest and humblest of his kind. Your faithful friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

PREFACE.

When the author commenced this work, he proposed

First. To establish a periodical, which should enable him to present, under one general head, and not as separate and distinct publications, certain fictions which he had it in contemplation to write.

"You certainly," continued my mother, "ap-to himself three objects. peared to great advantage the first day, and part of the second; but, after the mistake into which we were led by that stupid Mr. Burrows, you were so inanimate, and indifferent, and careless, (not that I blame you for it, my dear, because I gave you permission to be so,) and we all made ourselves so dull and disagreeable, that I am sure we were enough to repulse any eligible match in the world."

Secondly. To produce these tales in weekly numbers; hoping that to shorten the intervals of communication between himself and his readers, would be to knit more closely the pleasant relations they had held for forty months.

Captain Ormond and my father now entered, both looking highly satisfied with the result of their con- Thirdly. In the execution of this weekly task, to have ference, and the latter hardly able to contain the ex- as much regard as its exigencies would permit, to each uberance of his delight; he was at all times a good-story as a whole, and to the possibility of its publication natured man, but on the present occasion he was not at some distant day, apart from the machinery in which contented to lavish his kindness on his wife, children, it had its origin. and future son-in-law, but actually went the length The characters of Master Humphrey and his three of caressing the lap-dog, and paying compliments to friends, and the little fancy of the clock, were the result Penelope ! of these considerations. When he sought to interest his Captain Ormond was our guest during the re-readers in those who talked, and read, and listened, he mainder of the summer; his father gave a warm as-revived Mr. Pickwick and his humble friends; not with sent to his marriage, and we removed to London any intention of re-opening an exhausted and abandoned earlier in the winter than usual, for the purpose of mine, but to connect them in the thoughts of those buying wedding-clothes. whose favourites they had been, with the tranquil enjoyments of Master Humphrey.

I was at the Pantheon Bazaar, purchasing some "lady trifles," when I descried Mr. Burrows at a little distance; I ran to him, shook hands with him cordially, and stood talking to him for some time, although he never had been a particular favourite of mine.

"What in the world, Eva," said my mother, when we were seated in the carriage, "could induce you to waste so much time prosing with that tiresome old man? I have hardly patience to look at him; MUSEUM. Nov. 1840.

It was never the author's intention to make the members of Master Humphrey's Clock, active agents in the stories they are supposed to relate. Having brought himself in the commencement of his undertaking to feel an interest in these quiet creatures, and to imagine them in their old chamber of meeting, eager listeners to all he had to tell, the author hoped-as authors will-to succeed in awakening some of his own emotions in the bosoms of his readers. Imagining Master Humphrey in

45

his chimney-corner, resuming, night after night, the nar- furnished some new specimen-toook a most extraordirative-say, of the Old Curiosity Shop-picturing to nary and remarkable interest in the exhibition of Punch. himself the various sensations of his hearers-thinking If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so remote a dishow Jack Redburn might incline to poor Kit, and per- tance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though haps lean too favourably even toward the lighter vices of in bed and asleep, would start up, and hurrying on his Mr. Richard Swiveller-how the deaf gentleman would clothes, make for the spot with all speed, and presently have his favourite, and Mr. Miles his-and how all these return at the head of a long procession of idlers, having gentle spirits would trace some faint reflection of their in the midst the theatre and its proprietors. Straightpast lives in the varying current of the tale-he has in- way, the stage would be set up in front of Mr. Brass's sensibly fallen into the belief that they are present to his house; the single gentleman would establish himself at readers as they are to him, and has forgotten that like the first floor window, and the entertainment would proone whose vision is disordered he may be conjuring up ceed with all its exciting accompaniments of fife and bright figures where there is nothing but empty space. drum and shout, to the excessive consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done, both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the purport of which no human being

The short papers which are to be found at the beginning of this volume were indispensable to the form of publication and the limited extent of each number, as no story of lengthened interest could be begun until "The Clock" was wound up and fairly going.

The author would fain hope that there are not many who would disturb Master Humphrey and his friends in their seclusion: who would have them forego their present enjoyments, to exchange those confidences with each other, the absence of which is the foundation of could fathom. But the secret of these discussions was their mutual trust. For when their occupation is gone, when their tales are ended and but their personal histories remain, the chimney-corner will be growing cold, and the Clock will be about to stop for ever.

One other word on his own person, and he returns to the more grateful task of speaking for those imaginary people whose little world lies within these pages.

It may be some consolation to the well-disposed ladies or gentlemen who, in the interval between the conclusion of his last work, and the commencement of this, originated a report that he had gone raving mad, to know that it spread as rapidly as could be desired, and was made the subject of considerable dispute; not as regarded the fact, for that was as thoroughly established as the duel between Sir Peter Teazle and Charles Surface in the School for Scandal; but with reference to the unfortunate lunatic's place of confinement: one party insisting positively on Bedlam, another inclining favourably toward Saint Luke's, and a third swearing strongly by the asylum at Hanwell; while each backed its case by circumstantial evidence of the same excellent nature as that brought to bear by Sir Benjamin Backbite on the pistol-shot, which struck against the little bronze bust of Shakspeare over the fire-place, graze out of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.

of little importance. It was sufficient to know that while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated Punch with their tender voices; that the office window was rendered opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street door luminous with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing consolation, until the exhibiters were delivered up to them to be attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to know that Bevis Marks was revolutionised by these popular movements, and that peace and quietness fled from its precincts.

Nobody was rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr. Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from the roof of the house, and bribing the drivers of hackney cabriolets to come suddenly round the corner It will be a great affliction to these ladies and gentle- and dash in among them precipitately. It may at first men to learn and he is so unwilling to give pain, that sight be matter of surprise to the thoughtless few, that he would not whisper the circumstance on any account, Mr. Brass, being a professional gentleman, should not did he not feel in a manner bound to do so, in gratitude have legally indicted some party or parties active in the to those among his friends who were at the trouble of being angry with the absurdity-that their invention made the author's home unusually merry, and gave rise to an extraordinary number of jests, of which he will only add, in the words of the good Vicar of Wakefield, "I cannot say whether we had more wit among us than usual; but I am sure we had more laughing."

Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Sept. 1840.

THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH,

promotion of the nuisance; but they will be good enough to remember that as doctors seldom take their own prescriptions, and divines do not always practise what they preach, so lawyers are shy of meddling with the law on their own account, knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving, than for its always shaving the right person.

"Come," said Mr. Brass, one afternoon, "this is two days without a Punch. I'm in hopes he has run through 'em all, at last."

"Why are you in hopes!" returned Miss Sally.

The single gentleman, among his other peculiarities-"What harm do they do?" and he had a very plentiful stock, of which he every day

"Here's a pretty sort of fellow!" cried Brass, laying

down his pen in despair. animal!"

"Now here's an aggravated mournful expression of the upper part of his face though his mouth and chin were, of necessity, in lively spasms.

"Well, what harm do they do?" retorted Sally, "What harm!" cried Brass. "Is it no harm to have a constant hallooing and hooting under one's very nose, distracting one from business, and making one grind one's teeth with vexation? Is it no harm to be blinded and choked up, and have the king's highway stopped, with a set of screamers and roarers, whose throats must be made of-of-"

"Brass," suggested Mr. Swiveller.

"Ah! of brass," said the lawyer, glancing at his clerk, to assure himself that he had suggested the word in good faith and without any sinister intention. Is that no harm?"

The drama proceeded to its close, and held the spectators enchained in the customary manner. The sensation which kindles in large assemblies, when they are relieved from a state of breathless suspense, and are again free to speak and move, was yet ripe, when the lodger, as usual, summoned the man up stairs.

"Both of you," he called from the window; for only the actual exhibiter-a little fat man-prepared to obey the summons. "I want to talk to you. Come both of you."

"Come, Tommy," said the little man.

"I an't a talker," replied the other. "Tell him so. What should I go and talk for?" "Don't you see the gentleman's got a bottle and glass up there?" returned the little man.

The lawyer stopped short in his invective, and listening for a moment, and recognising the well-known voice, rested his head upon his hand, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and muttered faintly, "There's another!" Up went the single gentleman's window directly. "There's another," repeated Brass; "and if I could get a break and four blood horses to cut into the Markspecting us all day? haven't you no manners?" when the crowd is at its thickest, I'd give eighteen pence and never grudge it."

"And could'nt you have said so at first ?" retorted the other, with sudden alacrity. "Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to keep the gentleman ex

The distant squeak was heard again. The single gentleman's door burst open. He ran violently down the stairs, out into the street, and so past the window, without any hat, towards the quarter whence the sound proceeded-bent, no doubt, upon securing the stranger's services directly.

"I wish I only knew who his friends were," muttered Sampson, filling his pocket with papers; "if they'd just get up a pretty little commission de lunatico at the Gray's Inn Coffee House, and give me the job, I'd be content to have the lodgings empty for one while, at all events."

With these words, and knocking his hat over his eyes, as if for the purpose of shutting out even a glimpse of the dreadful visitation, Mr. Brass rushed from the house and hurried away.

As Mr. Swiveller was decidedly favourable to these performances, upon the ground that looking at a Punch, or indeed looking at any thing out of a window, was better than working, and as he had been for this reason at some pains to awaken in his fellow-clerk a sense of their beauties and manifold deserts, both he and Miss Sally rose as with one accord, and took up their positions at the window; upon the sill whereof, as in a post of honour, sundry young ladies and gentlemen who were employed in the dry nurture of babies, and who made a point of being present, with their young charges, on such occasions, had already established themselves as comfortably as the circumstances would allow.

The glass being dim, Mr. Swiveller, agreeably to a friendly custom which he had established between them, hitched off the brown head-dress from Miss Sally's head, and dusted it carefully therewith. By the time he had handed it back, and its beautiful wearer had put it on again, (which she did with perfect composure and indif ference,) the lodger returned with the show and showmen at his heels, and a strong addition to the body of spectators. The exhibiter disappeared with all speed behind the drapery, and his partner, stationing himself by the side of the theatre, surveyed the audience with a remarkable expression of melancholy; which became more remarkable still, when he breathed a hornpipe tune into that sweet musical instrument which is popularly termed a mouth-organ, without at all changing the

With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than Mr. Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft, Mr. Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to the single gentleman's apartment.

Now, my men," said the single gentleman; "you have done very well. What will you take? Tell that little man behind to shut the door."

"Shut the door, can't you?" said Mr. Codlin, turning gruffly to his friend. "You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door shut, without being told, I think."

Mr. Short obeyed, observing under his breath, that his friend seemed unusually "cranky," and expressing a hope that there was no dairy in the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its contents.

The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an emphatic nod of his head, that he expected them to be seated. Messrs. Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with considerable doubt and indecision, at length sat down-each on the extreme edge of the chair pointed out to him-and held their hats very tight, while the single gentleman filled a couple of glasses from a bottle on the table beside him, and presented them in due form.

"You're pretty well browned by the sun, both of you," said the entertainer. "Have you been travelling ?"

Mr. Short replied in the affirmative, with a nod and a smile. Mr. Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still felt the weight of the temple upon his shoulders.

"To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?' pursued the single gentleman.

Yes, sir," returned Short," pretty nigh all over the west of England."

"I have talked to men of your craft from north, east, and south," returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; " but I never lighted on any from the west before."

"It's our reg'lar summer circuit is the west, master," said Short: "that's where it is. We take the east of London in the spring and winter, and the west of England in the summer time. Many's the hard days' walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned, we've had down in the west."

"Let me fill your glasses again."

She has promised to receive him this evening in her chamber, when they will walk into a bottle of your old wine."

"Mille tonneres! If I was only certain of it!" "There is nothing easier than to make yourself certain, my dear Pierrot. At ten o'clock to-night, the moment you shall have set out upon your business, Master Harlequin will knock at your door. Your wife will run to open it for him. The wine and the glasses are all ready. They will have nothing to do but drink it." "Vertudieu! You have covered my forehead with a cold sweat, neighbour."

"You have only to hide yourself, Pierrot. Then when you see Harlequin knock, and your wife open the door, fall upon him like a thunderbolt, and put him out of the condition to do you an injury."

"I shall not fail; mille bombes, I shan't! Ah! you devil of a Harlequin, you wanted to play me a trick. But I shall catch you in your own trap. You threaten my forehead, scoundrel: take care of your own back."

And Pierrot sharpens his sabre, new flints and loads his pistol, hangs from his arm a great fat powder-horn, fortifies himself with a complete arsenal, in a word, takes up the posture of a regular swashing slasher, a true tranch-montagne, to such a degree, that Scaramouch, frightened by his terrible big oaths, and his furibund demonstrations, recommends him not to allow himself to be too much excited, and carried away by his valorous emotions, lest he should exterminate Harlequin all at once in his fury.

To this Pierrot, foaming with rage, replies with an interjection so expressive, that it is impossible to reproduce it here.

At half-past ten Scaramouch takes a turn toward the house, to learn what is passing there, and finds Pierrot in an ambuscade near the door.

"Well," he inquires," Harlequin has not yet come?"
"Yes, he is here these twenty minutes."'
"And he knocked?"

"Yes."

"And your wife opened the door?" "Then you gave him a devil of a beating; but you haven't killed him I hope?"

"No, I didn't touch him. I didn't even show myself. I have been reflecting."

"How! you have been reflecting?"

"Yes," I said to myself," this devil of a Harlequin is Justy and vigorous. He can flourish his bat with perfect science. If I attack him now, he will perhaps be too strong for me. Let me wait till he is going out. When he shall have drunk deep of my wine above-stairs, his sight will be confused, his limbs unsteady. Then I'll take him at advantage, and make sure of the scoundrel. Isn't this well-reasoned, neighbour?"

"And you are waiting for him now!" "Yes."

of the Four Powers, as indicated plainly enough in the treaty. How energetic were then Pierrot's oaths, as he drew his sword, brandished even for an instant the bonnet-rouge, and took his hundred millions from the Exchequer, to equip ships and raise soldiers! Like every other coward, he blustered ferociously at the commencement, and threatened to extinguish the Four Powers.

But, at twenty minutes past ten, when Scaramouchela-Presse comes to ask Pierrot-Neuf-Aout for some news from the campaign, he finds Pierrot still armed to the teeth, while the Four Powers are capturing ships and scattering proclamations. Pierrot "is taking time to reflect." Meanwhile, Harlequin has supped with Pierrot's wife, and drunk his wine. The Pasha of Egypt is vanquished, and Constantinople will probably enough be taken. Pierrot, you are a fool and a coward; but France will neither be one nor the other in dealing with you.

"Mehemet Ali to M. Thiers.

Do you know that at last you appear to me to be fastidious and inconsistent? I have already told you that I am consistent in all things, having but one opinion, but one word. I see plainly enough that we cannot come to an understanding. For several months past I have been in communication with you, who have proclaimed yourself my ally for life or death, and I know not now more than the first day what are your plans or your projects, or upon what matter I can reckon upon you with certainty. In Egypt here we can comprehend nothing whatever of your policy: although you know that we are in the habit of interpreting hieroglyphics. At every hour, at every minute both of the day and the night, I am besieged by your envoys, who for some time past have been more numerous than the sands of our deserts. One tells me, on your behalf, to be firm. Another, who comes immediately after him, tells me (still on your behalf) to be temperate. To him succeeds a third, who says to me, still more especially on your behalf, Be nothing at all.' By the slipper of the prophet, with whom do you think you have to deal? I have jugglers here at my court, but I do not practise their manœuvres, and it is not of such as these that I compose my ministers. Must I again repeat to you that, once I have made a declaration or a promise, nothing can induce me to depart from it? Yes, I am immovable; and I do not merely declare myself so, like others, to become ridiculous. Of what use, then, are these thousands upon thousands of envoys whom you send me to blow hot one moment and

"And you say that he has been above these twenty cold the next? They but lose their time, and, I would minutes?"

"Egad! it's now nearly half-an-hour." "Pierrot, Pierrot, poor devil! you are a fool; and you will be so to the end of your days."

add, their money too, if France did not reimburse them for their inefficacious journeys. Is it by chance that, in seeking to circumvent me with your clever citizen diplomacy, you would sport with my white hairs? I am afraid of it. I see in your journals, that you assume all the airs of a conqueror, another Saladin, and swear to support me to the last extremity. Next moment, in an underhand manner, you insinuate that I had better yield with docility to the pretensions of our common enemies. Yes, I can well conceive that it would be agreeable Scaramouche-la-Presse informed him of the intentions enough to play the part of an indomitable hero, without

M. Thiers is the very counterpart of Pierrot. He is determined to let the coalesced powers act until they shall have accomplished all their projects; then, when, having nothing more to do, they shall dissolve their alliance, ye gods, what a terrible vengeance he will inflict upon them!