d been fine and warm; but at the coming on of night, the air grew
cool, and in the mellowing distance smoke was rising gently from the
cottage chimneys. There were a thousand pleasant scents diffused around,
from young leaves and fresh buds; the cuckoo had been singing all day
long, and was but just now hushed; the smell of earth newly-upturned,
first breath of hope to the first labourer after his garden withered,
was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish
good resolves, and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking
on the shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on
all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond.

'Precious dull,' said Mr Jonas, looking about. 'It's enough to make a
man go melancholy mad.'

'We shall have lights and a fire soon,' observed Mr Pecksniff.

'We shall need 'em by the time we get there,' said Jonas. 'Why the devil
don't you talk? What are you thinking of?'

'To tell you the truth, Mr Jonas,' said Pecksniff with great solemnity,
'my mind was running at that moment on our late dear friend, your
departed father.'

Mr Jonas immediately let his burden fall, and said, threatening him with
his hand:

'Drop that, Pecksniff!'

Mr Pecksniff not exactly knowing whether allusion was made to the
subject or the portmanteau, stared at his friend in unaffected surprise.

'Drop it, I say!' cried Jonas, fiercely. 'Do you hear? Drop it, now and
for ever. You had better, I give you notice!'

'It was quite a mistake,' urged Mr Pecksniff, very much dismayed;
'though I admit it was foolish. I might have known it was a tender
string.'

'Don't talk to me about tender strings,' said Jonas, wiping his forehead
with the cuff of his coat. 'I'm not going to be crowed over by you,
because I don't like dead company.'

Mr Pecksniff had got out the words 'Crowed over, Mr Jonas!' when that
young man, with a dark expression in his countenance, cut him short once
more:

'Mind!' he said. 'I won't have it. I advise you not to revive the
subject, neither to me nor anybody else. You can take a hint, if you
choose as well as another man. There's enough said about it. Come
along!'

Taking up his part of the load again, when he had said these words,
he hurried on so fast that Mr Pecksniff, at the other end of the
portmanteau, found himself dragged forward, in a very inconvenient and
ungraceful manner, to the great detriment of what is called by fancy
gentlemen