his head with exceeding gravity all
the time, and sighing deeply.

"These rubbers," said Mr. Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly
the same style as he wore his hat, "remind me of the matrimonial
fireside. My old girl, Chegg's wife, plays cribbage; all-fours alike.
She rings the changes on 'em now. From sport to sport they hurry her, to
banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that
she forgets--but she don't. By this time, I should say," added Richard,
getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the
reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; "by
this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves
her right."

Mr. Swiveller, it must be said had been at one time somewhat in love
with a young lady: but she had left his love and married a Mr. Cheggs.

Melting from this stern and harsh into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr.
Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a
show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and
wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing
himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.

Some men, in his blighted position, would have taken to drinking; but as
Mr. Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the
news that this girl was lost to him forever, to playing the flute;
thinking, after mature consideration, that it was a good, sound, dismal
occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but tending to
awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosom, of his neighbors. Following out
this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and,
arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage,
took his flute from its box and began to play most mournfully.

The air was "Away with melancholy"--a composition, which, when it is
played very slowly on the flute in bed, with the farther disadvantage of
being performed by a gentleman not fully acquainted with the instrument,
who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has
not a lively effect. Yet for half the night, or more, Mr. Swiveller,
lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling and sometimes
half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune
over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a
time to take breath and talk to himself about the Marchioness and then