quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! And not our
paper neither,--not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our
paper,--so he must have been always at it. And he had crumpled up this
writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage.
There was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing
among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away
down among the very whalebones of his umbrella.

His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing-case was
poor,--not a particle of silver stopper,--bottle apertures with nothing
in 'em, like empty little dog-kennels,--and a most searching description
of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that
all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I
parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St.
Clement's Danes, in the Strand,--him as the officers in the Army mostly
dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if
I may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with
their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the
portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the
umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I should have
thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: "No more ith a
man'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith
grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll feth
with good luck when the'th thcoured and turned--I'll buy her!"

These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they
left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained
the writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under the
candid attention of the reader.

I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say,
namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:--Before I proceed to recount the
mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the
writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of
the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as
unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the
cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to
stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word
to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my u