Tim returns with a card,--"Mr. Joseph Primly." "Primly, Primly! oh!--a--yes--that man, yes,--you didn't say I was at home?" Tim had _not_ said you were at home, he had said that he didn't know whether you would be at home to him or not, and that he would go and see! "Stupid boy! Well, but this Primly--what can _he_ want? I never spoke to him but once, I think--must see him, I suppose, as he's a stranger. Give him the _Chronicle_, and say, I'm coming down in one minute--just going out." But before you _can_ "come down," before you can quite coax on the last article of attire, the knocker is again raised, and rap the third resounds. Confusion thrice confounded! "Now, Tim, who _is_ that? I can't be at home to anybody--you'll know whether I _can_ be denied--I'm going out, Tim. Where are my gloves?--Pray mind!" And, with an anxious face you await the third announcement. "Mr. Puggins Cribb." This _is_ provoking. You can't be out to _him_. He is your quarrelsome friend, to whom you have just been reconciled; the irascible brother of your soul, who suspects all your motives, makes no allowances for you, and charges you with the perpetual ill-usage which he himself inflicts. Should you be denied to _him_, he will be sure to suspect you are at home; and should he find you really are, he will make the grand tour of the metropolis in three days, visiting everybody who knows you, and abusing you everywhere. "Yes, Tim, very right--I must be at home to him. But gracious goodness, what's the time? I'm just going out!" Misfortunes never come single, and visitors seldom come in twos and threes. Before you are fairly at the bottom of the stairs, a fourth arrival is in all probability announced. What can you do? There was an excellent plan, first adopted by Sheridan, of getting rid of untimely visitors; but then his visitors were creditors. They came early, at seven in the morning, to prevent the possibility of being tricked with the usual answer, "Not at home," and of course they would not go away. One was shut up in one room, and another in another. By twelve o'clock in the day there was a vast accumulation; and at that hour, the master of the house would say, "James, are all the doors shut?" "All shut, sir." "Very well, then open the _street_-door softly;" and Sheridan walked quietly out between the double line of closed doors. But this plan, though a thought of it darts across your mind, you cannot put in operation against friends. You therefore face them, grasping this one vigorously by the hand; then begging to be excused for a single moment, while, with a ceremonious bow, you just touch the fingertips of another to whom you have scarcely the honour to be known,--or nod familiarly to a third in the farther corner, who, by the way, is testifying to the intimacy of his friendship, by turning over your favourite set of prints with the brisk manner of an accountant tumbling over a heap of receipts and bills of parcels.