At the present time, in the dark little parlor certain feet below the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlor, only ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest of sheet iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side of the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed wile away the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when it is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat, and guarded by his spindle legs, is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion, with which he is always provided, in order that he may have something to throw at the venerable partner of his respected age when ever she makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly sensitive. "And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's twin-sister. "He an't come in yet," says Judy. "It's his tea-time, isn't it?" "No." "How much do you mean to say it wants then?" "Ten minutes." "Hey?" "Ten minutes."--(Loud on the part of Judy.) [Illustration: THE SMALLWEED FAMILY.] "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at the trevets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money, and screeches, like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten ten-pound notes!" Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. "Drat you, be quiet!" says the old man. The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair, and causes her to present, when extricated by her grand-daughter, a highly unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into _his_ porter's chair, like a broken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being, at these times, a mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his grand-daughter, of being shaken up like a great bottle, and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again sit fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post by the Black Sergeant Death.