"Dear Sir,--Your favour of last week came safe to hand, and was very glad to find you was well, as it leaves us at present. Concerning your calling here next journey, am sorry to say shall be from home at that time. Sir, I should have been very glad to see you, but my son says you are not of an undeniable character, which, in a widow woman's establishment, must be first consideration. That was what I said to Mr Spriggins. Betsy, my daughter, as you know, is to be married to him next month. I don't think he is quite so steady as some, in regard that he must have his cigar and his tilberry on Sundays--John Mogg never did; but we can't all be Moggs in this world, or there wouldn't be no _great failures_. "S. Hodgett, in declining business, returns thanks for all past favours, and remain, Dear Sir, "Your obedient servant, "J. Spriggins, (late S. Hodgett.) "P.S.--I am afraid college is a sad place for such young men as is not steady. Mrs Hicks, our great butcher's lady, told me that, when her son, who was a remarkable good lad, came home from Cambridge college after being there only two months, they found a short pipe in his best coat pocket, and he called his father 'governor,' which, as Mrs H. said, he never was, and he wouldn't wear his nightcap." "Well," said Chesterton, when we had read this original document two or three times over, "it doesn't seem quite usual for a man to sign his own testimonials, especially when, as in Mr Spriggins's case, they are not the most flattering. Do you suppose he really wrote this, or signed it by mistake, or what is it? "Neither one nor the other. Don't you see, the old lady, in declining the linen-drapery, merges her own identity in that of her successor? There's no such firm as 'Hodgett' now, it's 'Spriggins,' and she thinks it necessary to sign accordingly. Here's the card enclosed." "Well, there's one thing very certain, that Mrs Hodgett declines doing business with you in future, John."