The house he lodged in belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Shum. They were a
poor but proliffic couple, who had rented the place for many years;
and they and their family were squeezed in it pretty tight, I can
tell you.

Shum said he had been a hofficer, and so he had. He had been a
sub-deputy assistant vice-commissary, or some such think; and, as
I heerd afterwards, had been obliged to leave on account of his
NERVOUSNESS. He was such a coward, the fact is, that he was
considered dangerous to the harmy, and sent home.

He had married a widow Buckmaster, who had been a Miss Slamcoe.
She was a Bristol gal; and her father being a bankrup in the
tallow-chandlering way, left, in course, a pretty little sum of
money. A thousand pound was settled on her; and she was as high
and mighty as if it had been a millium.

Buckmaster died, leaving nothink; nothink except four ugly
daughters by Miss Slamcoe: and her forty pound a year was rayther
a narrow income for one of her appytite and pretensions. In an
unlucky hour for Shum she met him. He was a widower with a little
daughter of three years old, a little house at Pentonwille, and a
little income about as big as her own. I believe she bullyd the
poor creature into marridge; and it was agreed that he should let
his ground-floor at John Street, and so add somethink to their
means.

They married; and the widow Buckmaster was the gray mare, I can
tell you. She was always talking and blustering about her famly,