fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of
business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any -- no man of
business is ever precipitate -- and it is not until the most rigid
catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's
inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars
receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the
respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the
morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not
present her bill, according to promise -- a piece of neglect for
which the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt
have chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain
in town a day or two for that purpose.

As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither
and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business
most emphatically, a "hen knee high" -- by which some persons imagine
them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i. -- by which again the
very classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood.
In the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less
piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a
shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully obliterates
the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great family
Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.

~~~ End of Text ~~~

======