magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in council in five years.
Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King's
14th, said to me, 'Sedley,' said he, 'I bet you thirteen to ten that
Sophy Cutler hooks either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.'
'Done,' says I; and egad, sir--this claret's very good. Adamson's
or Carbonell's?"

A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was
asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that day.
But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man's party, and
has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his
apothecary, Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and
the blue-pill.

Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of
claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of
plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout
cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly
(for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything) he thought
a great deal about the girl upstairs. "A nice, gay, merry young
creature," thought he to himself. "How she looked at me when I
picked up her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who's
that singing in the drawing-room? 'Gad! shall I go up and see?"

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force.
His father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-
coach standing hard by in Southampton Row. "I'll go and see the
Forty Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he slipped
away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared,
without waking his worthy parent.