with him long.'

'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle opened
his eyes.

'Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. 'I
shouldn't wonder--friends at court you know--but never you mind, mother,
just now; I'm all right, that's all.'

The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr
Toodle had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led to a
renewal of his wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the
opportune arrival of another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise,
appeared at the door, smiling patronage and friendship on all there.

'How do you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see you.
May I come in?'

The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss
Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr Toodle
on her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in the first
place she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.

The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the
frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an
unlucky planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general
salutation by having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been
previously trifling) deep on his head, hind side before, and being
unable to get it off again; which accident presenting to his terrified
imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in
darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family, caused
him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating cries.
Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and red, and
damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.

'You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,' said Miss Tox to Mr
Toodle.

'No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. 'But we've all on us got a little older
since then.'

'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.

'Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do you find yourself,
Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all
expect to grow into 'em, as we gets on.'

'Thank you,' said Miss Tox. 'I have not felt any inconvenience from that
disorder yet.'

'You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr Toodle. 'Many people at
your time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother--