On the day before the little dinner took place--and I promise you we shall come to it in the very next chapter--a tall and elegant middle-aged gentleman, who might have passed for an earl but that there was a slight incompleteness about his hands and feet, the former being uncommonly red, and the latter large and irregular, was introduced to Mrs. Timmins by the page, who announced him as Mr. Truncheon. “I'm Truncheon, Ma'am,” he said, with a low bow. “Indeed!” said Rosa. “About the dinner M'm, from Fubsby's, M'm. As you have no butler, M'm, I presume you will wish me to act as sich. I shall bring two persons as haids to-morrow; both answers to the name of John. I'd best, if you please, inspect the premisis, and will think you to allow your young man to show me the pantry and kitching.” Truncheon spoke in a low voice, and with the deepest and most respectful melancholy. There is not much expression in his eyes, but from what there is, you would fancy that he was oppressed by a secret sorrow. Rosa trembled as she surveyed this gentleman's size, his splendid appearance, and gravity. “I am sure,” she said, “I never shall dare to ask him to hand a glass of water.” Even Mrs. Gashleigh, when she came on the morning of the actual dinner-party, to superintend matters, was cowed, and retreated from the kitchen before the calm majesty of Truncheon. And yet that great man was, like all the truly great--affable. He put aside his coat and waistcoat (both of evening cut, and looking prematurely splendid as he walked the streets in noonday), and did not disdain to rub the glasses and polish the decanters, and to show young Buttons the proper mode of preparing these articles for a dinner. And while he operated, the maids, and Buttons, and cook, when she could--and what had she but the vegetables to boil?--crowded round him, and listened with wonder as he talked of the great families as he had lived with. That man, as they saw him there before them, had been cab-boy to Lord Tantallan, valet to the Earl of Bareacres, and groom of the chambers to the Duchess Dowager of Fitzbattleaxe. Oh, it was delightful to hear Mr. Truncheon! VI. On the great, momentous, stupendous day of the dinner, my beloved female reader may imagine that Fitzroy Timmins was sent about his business at an early hour in the morning, while the women began to make preparations to receive their guests. “There will be no need of your going to Fubsby's,” Mrs. Gashleigh said to him, with a look that drove him out of doors. “Everything that we require has been ordered THERE! You will please to be back here at six o'clock, and not sooner: and I presume you will acquiesce in my arrangements about the WINE?” “O yes, mamma,” said the prostrate son-in-law.