coming on. Sometimes
there is joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days
following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on sale.

Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come
spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All day
long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and
bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under
heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best
rose-wood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and
waggons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a
tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is carried
off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern
Household Furniture, & c., is in course of removal.

At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered
leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of
pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet-caps gather up
their screw-drivers and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk
off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes over the house as a last
attention; sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of
this desirable family mansion, and shutting the shutters. At length he
follows the men with the carpet caps. None of the invaders remain. The
house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.

Mrs Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the
ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been
spared the general devastation. Mrs Pipchin has remained austere and
stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has occasionally
looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching, and to bid for
one particular easy chair. Mrs Pipchin has been the highest bidder for
the easy chair, and sits upon her property when Mrs Chick comes to see
her.

'How is my brother, Mrs Pipchin?' says Mrs Chick.

'I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He never does
me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next
room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there's
nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no more about him than the
man in the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum porridge.'

This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.

'But good gracious me!' cries Mrs Chick blandly. 'How long is this t