mollified by beans and bacon as
some would have us believe. The _mould_--and very fine mould it is--is
_warped_, turned up by the mole; and this reminds me of a mole-catcher,
whose principles were warped also, and whose occupation was gone awhile
in our parts, when it was discovered that he carried a collection of
dead moles about with him, with which, the morning after his traps had
been set, he made a grand display on some contiguous hedge, inducing his
employer fondly to imagine that his enemies (as he thought of them) had
been all destroyed in a night.

Flying onwards--for this is a very fugitive piece--I would ask
admiration for the adjective _muggy_, as exquisitely descriptive of
weather, not uncommon in this climate, where a fog gives one the idea,
suggested by Dickens, that nature is brewing on an extensive scale
outside, and there's dampness everywhere, taking the curl from ringlet
and whisker, and causing our adhesive envelopes to fasten themselves on
our writing-table, as though practising the duties of their post.

No sun, no moon,
No morn, no noon,
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day--
No sky, no earthly view,
No distance looking blue.
No road, no street, no t'other side the way--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member,
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No ... vember!

I love, though not as licensed victuallers love, the little monosyllable
_nip_. What a nimble agility, what a motive power, in that curt,
imperative word!--the pistol-shot which starts the boat-race, the brief,
shrill whistle which starts the train. "Just nip off your horse and pull
out that stake." "You nipped out o' the army," said a snob to a friend
of mine, who had retired some years before the Crimean invasion, and
who, in his magisterial capacity, had offended the snob; "you know'd t'
war wor' a-coming; you nipped out, you didn't relish them Rooshan
baggonets a-prodding and a-pricking. You nipped out o' th' army; you
know'd t' war wor' coming. Good morning. I think you were right."

When the wind bloweth in from the Orient, or when our discretion has
collapsed before a lobster salad (that claw looked so innocently pink,
and that lettuce so crisp and green!) then is poor human nature but too
prone to be querulous; we disagree, like the lobster, with our fellow
creatures; we are peevishly disposed to _nag_. "My m