down stairs with hot water! If ever there is a noosance in the
world, it's a house where faintain is always goin on. I wouldn't
live in one,--no, not to be groom of the chambers, and git two
hundred a year.

It was eight o'clock in the evenin when this row took place; and
such a row it was, that nobody but me heard master's knock. He
came in, and heard the hooping, and screeching, and roaring. He
seemed very much frightened at first, and said, "What is it?"

"Mrs. Shum's here," says I, "and Mrs. in astarrix."

Altamont looked as black as thunder, and growled out a word which I
don't like to name,--let it suffice that it begins with a D and
ends with a NATION; and he tore up stairs like mad.

He bust open the bedroom door; missis lay quite pale and stony on
the sofy; the babby was screechin from the craddle; Miss Betsy was
sprawlin over missis; and Mrs. Shum half on the bed and half on the
ground: all howlin and squeelin, like so many dogs at the moond.

When A. came in, the mother and daughter stopped all of a sudding.
There had been one or two tiffs before between them, and they
feared him as if he had been a hogre.

"What's this infernal screeching and crying about?" says he. "Oh,
Mr. Altamont," cries the old woman, "you know too well; it's about
you that this darling child is misrabble!"

"And why about me, pray, madam?"