Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must
note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them
or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of
the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which
tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed.

Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand
unities--time, place, circumstance; and even now we do not sin against
the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it
suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed
the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities
would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I
have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two
knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place.
The time is just three weeks ago--a week before the baronet came of age,
and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we
know, after blessing Roger for a se'nnight, has at last left him in
jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the
brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as _dramatis personæ_,
includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, sturdy, bluffy, old woman, of
a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue--and our esteemed acquaintance
Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew,
butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded
the souchong.

"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?"

"Don't know, nephy--can't say yet what he'll be like: if he'll leave us
as we are, won't say wont."