depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he
had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill.
Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at the
other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that Mr. MacGrawler was
indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three
farthings.

After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic
hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it
between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins and requested
change.

As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called by
some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's "the oil of palms," her
countenance softened into a complacent smile; and when she gave the
required change to Mr. MacGrawler, she graciously hoped as how he would
recommend the Mug to the public.

"That you may be sure of," said the editor of "The Asinaeum." "There is
not a place where I am so much at home."

With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way.

"How spiteful the world be!" said Mrs. Lobkins, after a pause,
"'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public! When Judith
died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and that
she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would think a thumper
makes a man richer,--'cause why? Every man _thumps!_ I got nothing
more than a watch and ten guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce
paid for the burrel [burial]."