PTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY,
MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY

As it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so
mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and
the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as
it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less
become his station, or his gallantry to involve in the same neglect a
lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and
affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming
from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of
whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words--trusting
that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence
for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is
delegated--hastens to pay them that respect which their position
demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their
exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at
his hands. Towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in
this place, a dissertation touching the divine right of beadles, and
elucidative of the position, that a beadle can do no wrong: which
could not fail to have been both pleasurable and profitable to the
right-minded reader but which he is unfortunately compelled, by want of
time and space, to postpone to some more convenient and fitting
opportunity; on the arrival of which, he will be prepared to show, that
a beadle properly constituted: that is to say, a parochial beadle,
attached to a parochial workhouse, and attending in his official
capacity the parochial church: is, in right and virtue of his office,
possessed of all the excellences and best qualities of humanity; and
that to none of those excellences, can mere companies' beadles, or
court-of-law beadles, or even chapel-of-ease beadles (save the last,
and they in a very lowly and inferior degree), lay the remotest
sustainable claim.

Mr. Bumble had re-counted the teaspoons, re-weighed the sugar-tongs,
made a closer inspection of the milk-pot, and ascertained to a nicety
the exact condition of the furniture, down to the very horse-hair seats
of the chairs; and had repeated each process full half a dozen times;
before he began to think that it was time for Mrs. Corney to return.
Thinking begets thinking; as there were no sounds of Mrs. Corney's
approach, it occured to Mr. Bumble that it would be an