I asked the youth
to shew me a room in which I might perform the usual ablutions
previous to dinner, and followed him upstairs to a comfortless sort of
dressing-room, without a fire-place, where I found a yellow were jug
and basin, and a towel, of so coarse a huckaback, that I did not dare
adventure its rough texture next my complexion--my skin is not made for
such rude fellowship. While I was tenderly and daintily anointing my
hands with some hard water, of no Blandusian spring, and that vile
composition entitled Windsor soap, I heard the difficult breathing of
poor Clutterbuck on the stairs, and soon after he entered the adjacent
room. Two minutes more, and his servant joined him, for I heard the
rough voice of the domestic say, "There is no more of the wine with the
black seal left, Sir!"

"No more, good Dixon; you mistake grievously. I had two dozen not a week
since."

"Don't know, I'm sure, Sir!" answered Dixon, with a careless and half
impertinent accent; "but there are great things, like alligators, in the
cellar, which break all the bottles!"

"Alligators in my cellar!" said the astonished Clutterbuck.

"Yes, Sir--at least a venomous sort of reptile like them, which the
people about here call efts!"

"What!" said Clutterbuck, innocently, and evidently not seeing the irony
of his own question; "What! have the efts broken two dozen bottles in
a week? Of an exceeding surety, it is strange that a little creature
of the lizard species should be so destructive--perchance they have an
antipathy to the vinous smell; I will confer with my learned friend,
Dr. Dissectall, touching their strength and habits. Bring up some of the
port, then, good Dixon."

"Yes, Sir. All the corn is out; I had none for the gentleman's horse."

"Why, Dixon, my memory fails me strangely, or I paid you the sum of four
pounds odd shillings for corn on Friday last."

"Yes, Sir: but your cow and the chickens eat so much, and then blind
Dobbin has four feeds a day, and Farmer Johnson always puts his horse
in our stable, and Mrs. Clutterbuck and the ladies fed the jackass the
other day in the hired donkeychaise; besides, the rats and mice are
always at it."

"It is a marvel unto me," answered Clutterbuck, "how detrimental the
vermin race are; they seem to have noted my poor possessions as their
especial prey; remind me that I write to Dr. Dissectall to-morrow, good
Dixon."

"Yes, Sir, and now I think of it--" but here Mr. Dixon was cut s