The spirits and sentiment so overcame Brown, that he buried his emotion in the bolster--a state of mind the Captain did not fail to observe, and take advantage of; for--"he supposed Mr. Brown could _not_ spare L8, until Saturday?"--An affirmation that gentleman repudiated; for he granted the small favour with pleasure--presenting the leaf of an oblong book, and his autograph, to the Captain; who retired with the same--by an ingenious plan to render it of ten times the value--adding to the _eight_ a letter _y_, making it eight_y_, and the figure to keep company with a naught--L80. The events of this day are chronicled in the Diary of Brown--all _couleur de rose_,--the literal purport of which it would be tedious to repeat; suffice it to say, the aphorisms on the demise of the year ran foul of the "_occasional memoranda_," and were brought to a dead stop by the "_general accounts_;" not that his ideas stopped on paper, for he continued them in bed. Brown dreamed "his ship had come home;"--that he dwelt in a Belgravian palace; that he was an M.P.;--that he was known as _Brown_, the "King of 'Change"--that he ruled with an iron ruler--that he was enthroned upon a cash-box--that he wore a crown of dollars--that the four quarters of the globe adored him--that Great and Little Britain worshipped him;--that the _world_ told his _wife_, Brown was a great man:--but, alas!--trains of wild ideas, like locomotives that go too fast, may run off the rail when least expected, or explode as a train of gunpowder, without notice; so, in Mr. Brown's imagination, he feels as if shot into the air, after being dreadfully scalded--Mrs. Brown, kind soul, having applied a bottle of boiling water (forgetting the flannel) to the feet of her spouse, before retiring, herself--that good lady little thinking it was so warm. But there were other things Mrs. Brown did not know of; for she little thought the servants were round the kitchen-fire, quiet as mice, all deep in the "Mysteries of the Courts and Sewers of London"--a work affording the greatest amount of horrible excitement at the lowest rate,--a book in which Alphonso has discovered a Captain de Camp; and cook, a Lady Thingamy, whom, she says, "ain't no better than she should be"--a rather vague but significant truth, that might as appropriately have been applied to a saint as to a sinner, though cook intended it for the latter:--as to the Capting, the only think she had agin him was a wish he wouldn't spile everythink with soy and cayenne, for it got into the wash, and made the pigs sneeze. Mary, too, must have her opinion--saying Wellesley wasn't no gentleman, for he wiped his dirty boots on the towels, and would pull the plug out of the wash-bason when there was nothing under to catch the soapy water. During this scandal, John, whom all thought knew something, only said the Captain was _an umbug_--as he noiselessly disappeared, bearing his shoes in his hand; for it was considerably past midnight.