ime, I was content
to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a
warning in future to keep my secret better.

CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES

It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's advice, and, perhaps,
for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the
sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next
day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more
than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College
at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who
lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought
live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private
apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic
grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old
schoolfellow.

I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have
wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to
have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of,
into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too,
on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable
either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet,
and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking
out for the number I wanted.

The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I
lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded
gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike
all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one
monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy
who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped
brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the
afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly
yet.

'Now,' said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. 'Has that there
little bill of mine been heerd on?'

'Oh, master says he'll attend to it immediate,' was the reply.

'Because,' said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer,
and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of
somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an
impression which was strengthen