tural
irritation produced by hunger, his wife and sister-in-law had been
whipping him over each other's shoulders for the last half-hour, and now
this last remark made him ready to boil over. For a few seconds his face
wore an expression positively dangerous, but in another moment the
ridiculous side of the case struck him. With a good-humored laugh he
called for some wine--the only thing one was sure to get, as it was an
extra, and a pretty expensive one, too, on the hills--and they drowned
their hunger in a bumper of tolerable champagne.

The fact was, that the Bath Hotel had been a most excellent house three
or four summers previous, and the "enterprising and gentlemanly"
landlord (to borrow an American penny-a-liner's phrase) having made a
fortune, as he deserved, had sold out his lease, with the good-will and
fixtures of the establishment, to Mr. Grabster. The latter gentleman was
originally a respectable farmer and market-gardener in the vicinity of
Oldport; and having acquired by his business a fair sum of money, was
looking about for some speculation in which to invest it. He commenced
his new profession with tolerably good intentions, but having as much
idea of keeping a hotel as he had of steering a frigate, and finding a
balance against him at the end of the first season from sheer
mismanagement, he had been endeavoring ever since to make up for it by
screwing his guests in every way. People naturally began to complain.
Two courses were open to him--to improve his living, or to tip an editor
to puff him. He deemed the latter course the cheaper, and bought _The
Sewer_, which, while uttering the most fulsome adulation of every thing
connected with the Bath Hotel, frightened the discontented into silence
through dread of its abuse. Ludlow, and some of the other exclusives,
had, in the beginning of the present season, contrived a remedy, which,
for the time, was perfectly successful. They held a private interview
with the cook, and made up a weekly contribution for him, on condition
of their having the best of every thing, and enough of it, for dinner;
and the waiters were similarly retained. For a time this worked to a
marvel, and the subscribers were as well fed as they could desire. But
the other guests began to make an outcry against the aristocracy and
exclusiveness of private dishes on a public table, and the servants soon
hit upon a compromise of their own, which was to take the money without
rendering the