moved about and "put in order" in the house on his return, he would accept and belaud it all without a word of demur. And history vouches, to his honour, for the fact that when, on his reaching the house, he found his bookshelves dusted and his inkpot washed white on the outside, and all his belongings "put in order"--(in a _different_ order to the previous one, be it observed),--he at once praised Lenette in the kindest manner, without a shade of irritation, and said she had performed her household processes and accomplished her cleaning and brushing in a manner quite after his heart, for that it was impossible to be _too_ exquisitely neat and spick and span in the eyes of commonplace women, particularly such as composed the infernal triumvirate who were to be present that day (_i. e_. the bookbinder's, the barber's, and the shoemaker's wives); and on that account he had left the intendance-general of the theatre of operations entirely to her--whereas, in the case of scholars, like Stiefel and himself, the room might be turned into a complete English scouring, carding, and brushing apparatus--for men of their sort never glanced down at trifles of that description from their sublime heights of mental contemplation. But how pleasantly and cheerily did the president of the eating congress put all things in train by this his kindly temper, even before the assembling of the congress; though this appeared most fully after it _had_ assembled. When the thirteen United States, by their thirteen deputies, dine together at a round table to celebrate some arrangement which they have jointly arrived at (and that they do so at least, establishes the fact that when thirteen dine at a table the thirteenth does not necessarily die), it is an easy matter for the thirteen free states in question, paying, as they do, the expenses out of thirteen treasuries, to treat their delegates as liberally as Firmian treated his guests. It is pleasant to look at cattle grazing in the meadows, but not so pleasant to see Nebuchadnezzar conducting himself like one of them; and similarly it is repulsive to see a man of cultivation pasturing with a too eager delight on the stomach's meadow, the dinner-table (though it is not so in the case of the poor). Firmian's guests were all of one mind, even the married couples; for it is a leading characteristic of the lower classes that they enter into a dozen treaties of peace and make as many declarations of war, in the course of the four-and-twenty hours, and particularly that they ennoble each of their meals into a feast of love and reconciliation. Firmian saw in the lower classes a kind of standing troupe of actors playing Shakespeare's comedies, and thousands of times fancied that the dramatist himself was prompting them unseen. He had long coveted the pleasure of having some enjoyment or other of which he could give away some portion to the poor; he envied those rich Britons who pay the