had a country house at Kentish-town, to which he went down every
Saturday, and from which he returned every Monday or Tuesday, came by
a variety of unavoidable, or unavoided misfortunes to make his
appearance in the Gazette, with a "Whereas" prefixed to his name, Mr.
Bryant rather uncandidly chuckled and said, "I don't wonder at it. I
thought it would end in that. That comes from leaving things to boys."

Much as Mr. Bryant venerated the city, and all the city institutions,
yet he was by no means ambitious of its honours. His motives of
abstinence were of a mixed nature. He had fears that the dignity of
common-councilman, which he had occasionally been invited to aspire
to, might interfere with his domestic comforts and put Mrs. Dickinson
out of her way; and he had some slight apprehensions that he might not
be successful if he should make the attempt; and then as in the course
of his life he had seen many promoted to that honour, whom he had once
known as children and apprentices, and whom he still regarded as boys,
though some of them were upwards of thirty years old, he affected to
make light of a dignity that had become so cheap.

Mr. Bryant was considered by the frequenters of the Pewter Platter as
a man of substance, and being some years older than most of the
visitors at that house, and having been accustomed to the house for
more years than any other of the party, the arm-chair, at what was
called the upper side of the fire-place, was invariably reserved for
him, and the other arm chair was most frequently occupied by the Rev.
Simon Plush. This reverend gentleman was a specimen of a class of
clergy now happily extinct, and never it is to be hoped for the honour
of the church, likely to be revived. He was a tall, muscular, awkward
man, about fifty years of age; habited in a rusty grey coat, with
waistcoat and breeches of greasy black, wearing a grizzled wig that