licence for his butler; and within a few months of his departure, Mr
Bowley had opened the new Inn and Tavern for the accommodation of Her
Majesty's thirsty lieges. He had congratulated himself upon the
selection of the site, and upon the suitableness of the premises to the
requirements of a good trade; and his heart swelled within him, as he
sat at the head of his own table, on the occasion of the house-warming,
dispensing with no niggard hand the gratuitous viands and unlimited
beer, which were at once to symbolise and inaugurate the hospitality of
his mansion. He had a snug bar curtained with crimson drapery, for the
convenience of those who, declining the ostentation of the public room,
might prefer to imbibe their morning-draught with becoming privacy. He
had a roomy tap-room, where a cheerful fire was to blaze the winter
through, and a civil Ganymede minister to the wants of the humblest
guest. There was a handsome parlour hung round with sporting-prints,
with cushioned seats and polished mahogany tables, where the tradesmen
of the neighbourhood might take their evening solace after the fatigues
of business; and, more than all this, he had an immense saloon on the
first floor above, calculated for social conviviality on the largest
scale, and furnished with mirrors, pictures, and an old grand-piano, a
portion of the _lares_ of the deceased Sir Plumberry Muggs.

Mr Bowley, however, soon made the unpleasing discovery, that it is one
thing to open an establishment of the kind--which had already swallowed
up two-thirds of his capital--and another thing to induce the public to
patronise it. Notwithstanding the overflow which had gathered at his
house-warming, and the numberless good wishes which had been expressed,
and toasts which had been drunk to his prosperity, yet the prosperity
did not come. Of the hundred and fifty enthusiastic well-wishers who had
done honour to his entertainment, squeezed his hand, and sworn he was a
trump, not a dozen ever entered the house a second time. Do what he
would, Bowley could not create a business; and the corners of his mouth
began visibly to decline ere the experiment had lasted a couple of
months. He made a desperate effort to get up a Free-and-easy; he had the
old piano tuned, and set an old fellow to play upon it with open
windows; exhibited a perpetual announcement of 'A Concert this Evening;'
and himself led off the harmony, to the tune of _Tally-ho_, at the top
of his voice.