--himself perhaps amongst the number: there he sat with a brain as
burning, and a heart as excited, as though, instead of sipping his bohea
beside a sea-coal fire, he was that instant trembling beneath the frown
of Dr. Elrington, for the blunders in his Latin theme, and what terror
to the mind of a "Jib" can equal that one?

As luck would have it, this was a company night in the boarding-house.
Various young ladies in long blue sashes, and very broad ribbon sandals,
paraded the rooms, chatting gaily with very distinguished looking young
gentlemen, with gold brooches, and party-coloured inside waistcoats;
sundry elderly ladies sat at card-tables, discussing the "lost honour by
an odd trick they played," with heads as large as those of Jack or Jill
in the pantomime; spruce clerks in public offices, (whose vocation the
expansive tendency of the right ear, from long pen-carrying, betokened)
discussed fashion, "and the musical glasses" to some very over-dressed
married ladies, who preferred flirting to five-and-ten. The tea-table,
over which the amiable hostess presided, had also its standing votaries:
mostly grave parliamentary-looking gentlemen, with powdered heads,
and very long-waisted black coats, among whom the Sir Oracle was a
functionary of his Majesty's High Court of Chancery, though I have reason
to believe, not, Lord Manners: meanwhile, in all parts of the room might
be seen Blue Peter, distributing tea, coffee, and biscuit, and
occasionally interchanging a joke with the dwellers in the house. While
all these pleasing occupations proceeded, the hour of Cudmore's trial was
approaching. The tea-pot which had stood the attack of fourteen cups
without flinching, at last began to fail, and discovered to the prying
eyes of Mrs. Clanfrizzle, nothing but an olive-coloured deposit of soft
matter, closely analogous in appearance and chemical property to the
residuary precipitate in a drained fish-pond; she put down the lid with
a gentle sigh and turning towards the fire bestowed one of her very