in full for hours of anxious love and care? does not the kindness of a life
fade "like the baseless fabric of a vision" before the withering touch of
poverty's stern stamp? Have you ever felt--

"Eh? what? No--stuff! Yes, yes--go on, go on."

We will!--we blushed for our uncle's coat! His heart, God bless it, never
caused a blush on the cheek of man, woman, child, or even angel, to rise
for that. We will confess. Let's see, we are sixty now (we don't look so
much, but we are sixty). Well, be it so. We were handsome once--is this
vanity at sixty? if so, our grey hairs are a hatchment for the past. We
were "swells once!--hurrah!--we were!" Stop, this is indecent--let us be
calm--our action was like the proceeding of the denuder of well-sustained
and thriving pigs, he who deprives them of their extreme obesive
selvage--_vulgo_, "_we cut it fat_." Bond-street was cherished by our
smile, and Ranelagh was rendered happy by the exhibition of our symmetry.
Behold us hessianed in our haunts, touching the tips of well-gloved fingers
to our passing friends; then fancy the opening and shutting of our back,
just as Lord Adolphus Nutmeg claimed the affinity of "kid to kid," to find
our other hand close prisoner made by our uncle Bucket.

"How are you, old cock?"

"Who's that, eh?"

"A lunatic, my lord (what lies men tell!), and dangerous!"

"Good day! [_Exit my lord_]. This way." We followed our uncle--the end of a
blind alley gave us a resting-place.