hort
in his items, by the entrance of a third person, who proved to be Mrs.
Clutterbuck.

"What, not dressed yet, Mr. Clutterbuck; what a dawdler you are!--and
do look--was ever woman so used? you have wiped your razor upon my
nightcap--you dirty, slovenly--"

"I crave you many pardons; I own my error!" said Clutterbuck, in a
nervous tone of interruption.

"Error, indeed!" cried Mrs. Clutterbuck, in a sharp, overstretched,
querulous falsetto, suited to the occasion: "but this is always the
case--I am sure, my poor temper is tried to the utmost--and Lord help
thee, idiot! you have thrust those spindle legs of yours into your
coat-sleeves instead of your breeches!"

"Of a truth, good wife, your eyes are more discerning than mine; and my
legs, which are, as you say, somewhat thin, have indued themselves in
what appertaineth not unto them; but for all that, Dorothea, I am not
deserving of the epithet of idiot, with which you have been pleased
to favour me; although my humble faculties are indeed of no eminent or
surpassing order--"

"Pooh! pooh! Mr. Clutterbuck, I am sure, I don't know what else you are,
muddling your head all day with those good-for-nothing books. And now
do tell me, how you could think of asking Mr. Pelham to dinner, when you
knew we had nothing in the world but hashed mutton and an apple pudding?
Is that the way, Sir, you disgrace your wife, after her condescension in
marrying you?"

"Really," answered the patient Clutterbuck, "I was forgetful of those
matters; but my friend cares as little as myself, about the grosser
tastes of the table; and the feast of intellectual converse is all that
he desires in his brief sojourn beneath our roof."

"Feast of fiddlesticks, Mr. Clutterbuck! did ever man talk such
nonsense?"

"Besides," rejoined the master of the house, unheeding this
interruption, "we have a luxury even of the palate, than which there are
none more delicate, and unto which he, as well as myself, is, I know,
somewhat unphilosophically given; I speak of the oysters, sent here by
our good friend, Dr. Swallow'em."

"What do you mean, Mr. Clutterbuck? My poor mother and I had those
oysters last night for our supper. I am sure she as well as my sister
are almost starved; but you are always wanting to be pampered up above
us all."

"Nay, nay," answered Clutterbuck, "you know you accuse me wrongfully,
Dorothea; but now I think of it, would it not be better to modulate the
tone of our conver