"He wait at dinner, my love! it is not he who waits."

"Who then, Mr. Copperas?"

"Why we, my love; it's we who wait for dinner; but that's the cook's
fault, not his."

"Pshaw! Mr. Copperas; Adolphus, my love, sit upright, darling."

Here De Warens cried from the bottom of the stairs,--"Measter, the
coach be coming up."

"There won't be room for it to turn then," said the facetious Mr.
Copperas, looking round the apartment as if he took the words
literally.

"What coach is it, boy?"

Now that was not the age in which coaches scoured the city every half
hour, and Mr. Copperas knew the name of the coach as well as he knew
his own.

"It be the Swallow coach, sir."

"Oh, very well: then since I have swallowed in the roll, I will now
roll in the Swallow--ha--ha--ha! Good-by, Mr. Linden."

No sooner had the witty stock-jobber left the room than Mrs. Copperas
seemed to expand into a new existence. "My husband, sir," said she,