party, was the only person in the audience who heard his Majesty
exclaim, 'Charlotte, Charlotte, don't be frightened, don't be
frightened; they're letting off squibs, they're letting off
squibs.' When the fire broke out, which ended in the destruction
of the two Houses of Parliament, the egotistical couple, being at
the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath, then and there
simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole party--
'It's the House of Lords!' Nor was this a solitary instance of
their peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison
of dates and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same
omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim's head about
town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular twitching in the
muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street Hill, a
few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his lady--
slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument--'There's a
boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It's very strange. I
don't like it.--In five seconds afterwards, Sir,' says the
egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands together with one violent
clap--'the lad was over!'

Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others of the
same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute account
of what weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and
diet disagreed with them, and at what time they usually got up, and
at what time went to bed, with many other particulars of their
domestic economy too numerous to mention; the egotistical couple at
length took their leave, and afforded us an opportunity of doing
the same.

Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another