It was what we will venture to call a vinous hour of the morning, when Mr. Jericho returned home after the dinner eaten abroad in defiance of his own household gods, we fear sadly despised upon the occasion. For Mr. Jericho, with accessory boon-fellows, had partaken of a luxurious repast; little caring that his own stinted lares were served with, at best, metaphoric cold mutton. Mr. Jericho had tested the best resources of the larder and cellar of the Apollo Tavern; and full of meat and wine, and his brain singing with fantastic humours, he had surveyed the river Thames with simpering complacency; had seen big-bellied ships, stowed with India and Africa, drop silently with the tide towards their haven. It was impossible to enjoy a serener evening or a nobler sight. The setting sun, with a magnificence quite worthy of the west-end, coloured all things gold and ruby; the black hulls of ships glowed darkly and richly; and their sails were, for the time, from Tyrian looms. The gorgeousness of the hour enriched every common object with glorious beauty. Every cold, mean common-place of the common day seemed suffused in one wide harmonious splendour. And the brain of Jericho, meditating the scene, was expanded and melted into it; and in that prodigal wealth of colour, the illusion a little assisted by the swallowed colours within him, Jericho felt himself a part and parcel of the absorbing richness. The wine in his heart, a Bacchus’ jack-o’-lantern, reflected the rosy, golden light that came upon him. This sweet illusion lasted its pleasant time, fading a little when the bill was rung for. Nevertheless, Jericho, by the force of the scene and the wine, felt himself in much easier circumstances than the hard tyranny of truth, when he was in a calm condition to respect its dictum, was likely to allow. And so, at that hour when sparrows look down reproachfully from their eaves at the flushed man trying the street-door—at that penitential hour, with the hues of the past romantic evening becoming very cold within him—Mr. Jericho stood beneath his own oppressive roof. Mrs. Jericho was gone to bed. Mr. Jericho breathed a little lighter. Such a load was taken off him, that he mounted the staircase tenderly, as though he trod upon flowers; as though every woollen blossom in the carpet from the stair to the bed itself was living heart’s-ease; which it was not.