eet woman, at which admission Mr. Mincin cried 'Bravo!' and begged to
propose Mrs. Capper with heartfelt enthusiasm, whereupon our host said,
'Thank you, Mincin,' with deep feeling; and gave us, in a low voice, to
understand, that Mincin had saved Mrs. Capper's cousin's life no less
than fourteen times in a year and a half, which he considered no common
circumstance--an opinion to which we most cordially subscribed.

Now that we three were left to entertain ourselves with conversation, Mr.
Mincin's extreme friendliness became every moment more apparent; he was
so amazingly friendly, indeed, that it was impossible to talk about
anything in which he had not the chief concern. We happened to allude to
some affairs in which our friend and we had been mutually engaged nearly
fourteen years before, when Mr. Mincin was all at once reminded of a joke
which our friend had made on that day four years, which he positively
must insist upon telling--and which he did tell accordingly, with many
pleasant recollections of what he said, and what Mrs. Capper said, and
how he well remembered that they had been to the play with orders on the
very night previous, and had seen Romeo and Juliet, and the pantomime,
and how Mrs. Capper being faint had been led into the lobby, where she
smiled, said it was nothing after all, and went back again, with many
other interesting and absorbing particulars: after which the friendly
young gentleman went on to assure us, that our friend had experienced a
marvellously prophetic opinion of that same pantomime, which was of such
an admirable kind, that two morning papers took the same view next day:
to this our friend replied, with a little triumph, that in that instance
he had some reason to think he had been correct, which gave the friendly
young gentleman occasion to believe that our friend was always correct;
and so we went on, until our friend, filling a bumper, said he must drink
one glass to his dear friend Mincin, than whom he would say no man saved
the lives of his acquaintances more, or had a more friendly heart.
Finally, our friend having emptied his glass, said, 'God bless you,
Mincin,'--and Mr. Mincin and he shook hands across the table with much
affection and earnestness.

But great as the friendly young gentleman is, in a limited scene like
this, he plays the same part on a larger scale with increased _eclat_.
Mr. Mincin is invited to an evening party with his dear friends the
Martins, where