vee, or the
Queen is ridin' out, or what not; take a look at the world, make a visit
or two to kill time, when all at once it's dark. Home then, smoke a
cigar, dress for dinner, and arrive at a quarter past seven.

"Folks are up to the notch here when dinner is in question, that's a
fact, fat, gouty, broken-winded, and foundered as they be. It's rap,
rap, rap, for twenty minutes at the door, and in they come, one arter
the other, as fast as the sarvants can carry up their names. Cuss
them sarvants! it takes seven or eight of 'em to carry a man's name up
stairs, they are so awful lazy, and so shockin' full of porter. If a
feller was so lame he had to be carried up himself, I don't believe on
my soul, the whole gang of them, from the Butler that dresses in the
same clothes as his master, to Boots that ain't dressed at all, could
make out to bowse him up stairs, upon my soul I don't.

"Well, you go in along with your name, walk up to old aunty, and make a
scrape, and the same to old uncle, and then fall back. This is done
as solemn, as if a feller's name was called out to take his place in a
funeral; that and the mistakes is the fun of it. There is a sarvant at
a house I visit at, that I suspicion is a bit of a bam, and the critter
shows both his wit and sense. He never does it to a 'somebody,' 'cause
that would cost him his place, but when a 'nobody' has a droll name,
he jist gives an accent, or a sly twist to it, that folks can't help a
larfin', no more than Mr. Nobody can feelin' like a fool. He's a droll
boy, that; I should like to know him.

"Well, arter 'nouncin' is done, then comes two questions--do I know
anybody here? and if I do, does he look like talk or not? Well, seein'
that you have no handle to your name, and a stranger, it's most likely
you can't answer these questions right; so you stand and use your eyes,
and put your tongue up in its case till it's wanted. Company are all
come, and now they have to be marshalled two and two, lock and lock, and
go into the dinin'-room to feed.

"When I first came I was nation proud of that title, 'the Attache;' now
I am happified it's nothin' but 'only an Attache,' and I'll tell you
why. The great guns, and big bugs, have to take in each other's ladies,
so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together
too, and sit together, and I've observed these nobodies are the
pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places,
because they si