apartment was rather a large one, and as I was seated in the corner of a box at some distance from the entrance, they did not at first observe me; and several words caught my ear which awakened a strong desire to hear more. That I might do so, I instantly adopted a very common, but not the less often very successful device. As soon as the new-comers perceived me, their whispered colloquy stopped abruptly; and after a minute or so, the man said, looking hard at me, 'Good-day, sir; you have had rather a long walk?' and he glanced at my dusty boots. 'Sir,' I replied, enclosing my left ear with my hand in the manner of a natural ear-trumpet, 'did you speak?' 'A dusty walk,' he rejoined in a voice that might have been heard in a hurricane or across Fleet Street. 'One o'clock!' I replied, pulling out my watch. 'No: it wants a quarter yet.' 'Deaf as the Monument,' said Jones to his companion. 'All right.' The suspended dialogue was but partially resumed. 'Do you think,' said the woman, after the lapse of about five minutes--'do you think Owen and his family will go with us? I hope not.' 'Not he: I only asked him just for the say-so of the thing. He is too chicken-hearted for that, or for anything else that requires pluck.' Finishing the spirits and water they had ordered, they soon afterwards went out. I followed. As soon as we had gone about a hundred paces from the house, I said, 'Pray can you tell me which is Mr Lloyd the beech-merchant's house?' 'Yes,' replied the man, taking hold of my arm, and hallooing into my ear with a power sufficient to really deafen one for life: 'we are going there to dine.'