te--the hour
of dinner: an hour of which it was never needful to remind Mr. Hill by
watch, clock, or dial; for he was blessed with a punctual appetite, and
powerful as punctual: so powerful, indeed, that it often excited the
spleen of his more genteel or less hungry wife. "Bless my stars! Mr.
Hill," she would oftentimes say, "I am really downright ashamed to see
you eat so much; and when company is to dine with us, I do wish you would
take a snack by way of a damper before dinner, that you may not look so
prodigious famishing and ungenteel."

Upon this hint, Mr. Hill commenced a practice, to which he ever
afterwards religiously adhered, of going, whether there was to be company
or no company, into the kitchen regularly every day, half an hour before
dinner, to take a slice from the roast or the boiled before it went up to
table. As he was this day, according to his custom, in the kitchen,
taking his snack by way of a damper, he heard the housemaid and the cook
talking about some wonderful fortune-teller, whom the housemaid had been
consulting. This fortune-teller was no less a personage than the
successor to Bampfylde Moore Carew, king of the gipsies, whose life and
adventures are probably in many, too many, of our readers' hands.
Bampfylde, the second king of the gipsies, assumed this title, in hopes
of becoming as famous, or as infamous, as his predecessor: he was now
holding his court in a wood near the town of Hereford, and numbers of
servant-maids and 'prentices went to consult him--nay, it was whispered
that he was resorted to, secretly, by some whose education might have
taught them better sense.

Numberless were the instances which our verger heard in his kitchen of
the supernatural skill of this cunning man; and whilst Mr. Hill ate his
snack with his wonted gravity, he revolved great designs in his secret
soul. Mrs. Hill was surprised, several times during dinner, to see her
consort put down his knife and fork, and meditate. "Gracious me, Mr.
Hill! what can have happened to you this day? What can you be thinking
of, Mr. Hill, that can make you forget what you have upon your plate?"

"Mrs. Hill," replied the thoughtful verger, "our grandmother Eve had too
much curiosity; and we all know it did not lead to good. What I am
thinking of will be known to you in due time, but not now, Mrs. Hill;
therefore, pray, no questions, or teasing, or pumping. What I think, I
think; what I say, I say; what I know, I k