haesit_ and stuck in my gizzard with bashful sheepishness, for
how to convulse the Thames and set it on fire and all agog with
amazement at the humdrum incidents of so very ordinary an existence as
mine, which is spent in the diligent study of Roman, Common,
International, and Canonical Law from morn to dewy eve in the
lecture-hall or the library of my inn, and, as soon as the shades of
night are falling fast, in returning to my domicilium at Ladbroke Grove
with the undeviating punctuality of a tick?

However, being above all things desirous not to let slip the golden
opportunity and pocket the root of all evil, I decided to let my
diffidence go to the wall and boldly record every jot and tittle,
however humdrum, with the critical reflections and censorious
observations arising therefrom, remembering that, though the fabulous
and mountain-engendered mouse was no doubt at the time considered but a
fiasco and flash in the pan by its maternal progenitor, nevertheless
that same identical mouse rendered yeomanry services at a subsequent
period to the lion involved in the compromising intricacies of a
landing-net!

Benevolent reader, _de te fabula narratur_. Perchance the mousey
bantlings of my insignificant brain may nibble away the cords of
prejudice and exclusiveness now encircling many highly respectable
British lions. Be not angry with me therefore, if in the character of a
damned but good-natured friend, I venture on occasions to "hint dislike
and hesitate disgust."

The majestic and magnificent matron, under whose aegis I reside for rs.
20 per week, is of lofty lineage, though fallen from that high estate
into the peck of troubles, and compelled (owing to severely social
disposition) to receive a number of small and select boarders.

Like _Jepthah_, in the play of _Hamlet_, she has one fair daughter and
no more, a bewitching and well-proportioned damsel, as fine as a
fivepence or a May-day queen. Notwithstanding this, when I summon up my
courage to address her, she receives my laborious politeness with a
cachinnation like that of a Cheshire cheese, which strikes me all of a
heap. Her female parent excuses to me such flabbergasting demeanour on
the plea that her daughter is afflicted with great shyness and maidenly
modesty, but, on perceiving that she can be skittish and genial in the
company of other masculines, I am forced to attribute her
contumeliousness to the circumstance that I am a native gentleman of a
da