facetiously called her--who had been in the family's service and was
staying on in the city, undertook to pay him occasional visits and to
report should he be in difficulties.

The novelty of his semi-independence caused him at first to look with
cheerful eye on his narrow surroundings. To his sister he wrote in
April 1819:--

"Here are some details about my way of living. I have taken a servant.

"A servant! What can you be thinking of!

"Yes; a servant. His name is as funny as that of Dr. Nacquart's
domestic. The Doctor's is Tranquil; mine is Myself. He is a bad
acquisition! . . . Myself is idle, clumsy, and improvident. When his
master is hungry and thirsty, he has sometimes neither bread nor water
to give him; he does not know how to protect himself against the wind,
which blows through the door and window like Tulou through his flute,
but less agreeably. As soon as I am awake, I ring for Myself, and he
makes my bed. He sets to sweeping, and is not very deft in the
exercise.

"Myself!

"Yes, Sir.

"Just look at the cobweb where that big fly is buzzing loud enough to
deafen me, and at those bits of fluff under the bed, and at that dust
on the windows blinding me.