hy
anybody knows better than that. I know better than that! Ha, ha, ha!'

It is unnecessary to say that Tom had been present at the making of the
pudding, and had been a devoted believer in it all through. But he was
so delighted to have this joke against his busy little sister and was
tickled to that degree at having found her out, that he stopped
in Temple Bar to laugh; and it was no more to Tom, that he was
anathematized and knocked about by the surly passengers, than it would
have been to a post; for he continued to exclaim with unabated good
humour, 'flour and eggs! A beefsteak pudding made with flour and eggs!'
until John Westlock and his sister fairly ran away from him, and left
him to have his laugh out by himself; which he had, and then came
dodging across the crowded street to them, with such sweet temper and
tenderness (it was quite a tender joke of Tom's) beaming in his face,
God bless it, that it might have purified the air, though Temple Bar had
been, as in the golden days gone by, embellished with a row of rotting
human heads.

There are snug chambers in those Inns where the bachelors live, and, for
the desolate fellows they pretend to be, it is quite surprising how well
they get on. John was very pathetic on the subject of his dreary life,
and the deplorable makeshifts and apologetic contrivances it involved,
but he really seemed to make himself pretty comfortable. His rooms were
the perfection of neatness and convenience at any rate; and if he were
anything but comfortable, the fault was certainly not theirs.

He had no sooner ushered Tom and his sister into his best room (where
there was a beautiful little vase of fresh flowers on the table, all
ready for Ruth. Just as if he had expected her, Tom said), than, seizing
his hat, he bustled out again, in his most energetically bustling, way;
and presently came hurrying back, as they saw through the half-opened
door, attended by a fiery-faced matron attired in a crunched bonnet,
with particularly long strings to it hanging down her back; in
conjunction with whom he instantly began to lay the cloth for dinner,
polishing up the wine-glasses with his own hands, brightening the silver
top of the pepper-caster on his coat-sleeve, drawing corks and filling
decanters, with a skill and expedition that were quite dazzling. And
as if, in the course of this rubbing and polishing, he had rubbed an
enchanted lamp or a magic ring, obedient to which there were twenty
t