genteel persons,
whose manners make them at home anywhere, being evidently unaware of true
derivation of this word, are in the habit of addressing all unknown
children by one of the two terms, "bub" and "sis," which they consider
endears them greatly to the young people, and recommends them to the
acquaintance of their honored parents, if these happen to accompany them.
The other boarders commonly call our diminutive companion That Boy. He
is a sort of expletive at the table, serving to stop gaps, taking the
same place a washer does that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to
get driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where there is a
crevice. I shall not call that boy by the monosyllable referred to,
because, though he has many impish traits at present, he may become
civilized and humanized by being in good company. Besides, it is a term
which I understand is considered vulgar by the nobility and gentry of the
Mother Country, and it is not to be found in Mr. Worcester's Dictionary,
on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are by
special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible. I know one,
certainly, who never takes his oath on any other dictionary, any
advertising fiction to the contrary, notwithstanding.

I wanted to write out my account of some of the other boarders, but a
domestic occurrence--a somewhat prolonged visit from the landlady, who is
rather too anxious that I should be comfortable broke in upon the
continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned--in short, I gave up writing
for that day.

--I wonder if anything like this ever happened. Author writing, jacks?"

"To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 't is nobl--"

--"William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?"

--"Flapjacks, an' it please thee, Anne, or a pudding, for that matter; or
what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt me and my thought."

--Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door and
murmurs to the effect: "Ay, marry, 't is well for thee to talk as if thou
hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must swink for our masters,
while they sit in their arm-chairs growing as great in the girth through
laziness as that ill-mannered fat man William hath writ of in his books
of players' stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which hath
thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his eyes be rolling
in that mad way."

William--w