stress, let him never appear in her presence with such a
gentleman as Mr. Tims. She will despise him to a certainty; nor, though
his soul be as large as Atlas or Teneriffe, will it compensate for the
paltry dimensions of his body.

What was to be done? With the ladies, it was plain, I _could_ do nothing:
with Mr. Tims, it was equally plain, I _ought_ to do nothing--seeing that,
however much he was the cause of my uneasiness, he was at least the
_innocent_ cause, and therefore neither morally nor judicially amenable to
punishment. From respecting Mr. Tims I came to hate him; and I vowed
internally, that, rather than be annihilated by this enlarged edition of
Daniel Lambert, I would pitch him over the window. Had I been a giant, I
am sure I would have done it on the spot. The giants of old, it is well
known, raised Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to scale the throne of
heaven; and tossed enormous mountains at the godhead of Jupiter himself.
Unfortunately for me, Mr. Tims was a mountain, and I was no giant.

I accordingly got up, and, pretending it was necessary that I should see
some person in the next street, abruptly left the room. Julia--I did not
expect it--saw me to the door, shook hands with me, and said she hoped I
would return to supper when my business was finished. Sweet girl! was it
possible she could prefer the Man-Mountain to me?

Away I went into the open air. I had no business whatever to perform: it
was mere fudge; and I resolved to go home as fast as I could.

But I did not go home. On the contrary, I kept strolling about from street
to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The
night was of the most melancholy description--a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy
December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary
straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an
occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of
the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an
olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. It was
well I chanced to be so well fortified against the weather; for had it
been otherwise, I must have been drenched to the skin. Where I went I know
not, so deeply was my mind wound up in its various melancholy cogitations.
This, however, I do know, that, after striking against sundry lamp-posts,
and overturning a few old women in my fits of absence, I found myself
precisely at t