pocket of his memory, and crunches a bit, and relishes it with a
sentimental tenderness, too, for he is, no doubt, back at school
by this time; the holidays are over; and Doctor Birch's young
friends have reassembled.

Queer jokes, which caused a thousand simple mouths to grin! As
the jaded Merryman uttered them to the old gentleman with the
whip, some of the old folks in the audience, I daresay, indulged
in reflections of their own. There was one joke -- I utterly
forget it -- but it began with Merryman saying what he had for
dinner. He had mutton for dinner, at one o'clock, after which
"he had to come to business." And then came the point. Walter
Juvenis, Esq., Rev. Doctor Birch's, Market Rodborough, if you
read this, will you please send me a line, and let me know what
was the joke Mr Merryman made about having his dinner? You
remember well enough. But do I want to know? Suppose a boy
takes a favourite, long-cherished lump of cake out of his pocket,
and offers you a bit? Merci! The fact is, I don't care much
about knowing that joke of Mr Merryman's.

But whilst he was talking about his dinner, and his mutton, and
his landlord, and his business, I felt a great interest about Mr
M. in private life -- about his wife, lodgings, earnings, and
general history, and I daresay was forming a picture of those in
my mind: -- wife cooking the mutton; children waiting for it;
Merryman in his plain clothes, and so forth; during which
contemplation the joke was uttered and laughed at, and Mr M.,
resuming his professional duties, was tumbling over head and
heels. Do not suppose I am going, sicut est mos, to indulge in
moralities about buffoons, paint, motley, and mountebanking.