“He who licks honey from thorns pays too dearly for it,” replied the wit. “So I packed my wardrobe in a pocket handkerchief, and trudged off to Cockneyshire.” “And what was your object?” asked the major. “To carry my wit to a better market; and instead of retailing it at country fairs, to offer it wholesale to some of the great publishers, from whom I immediately received considerable orders. The profit which rewarded my poetry soon convinced me, notwithstanding all that had been said to the contrary, that there were still some gold mines in Parnassus. I lived for the first week on liquid blacking. I well remember it was winter, and although I contrived by my eulogies of the jet polish, to obtain a daily meal from a neighbouring chop-house, I was compelled to sit in my chamber at night without fire or candle, until the publication of my song, ‘_Ah let my muse a flame inspire_,’ lighted a cheerful blaze in my grate, and enabled me to purchase a few pounds of rush-lights. In short, gentlemen, without exhausting your patience with a long recital of my adventures, suffice it to say, that I have always been able to keep my pipe smoking by my _puffs_, my pot boiling by the ebullition of my wit, and my grate blazing by the _fire_ of my genius; while paste and scissors have never failed to secure a constant supply of _cabbage_, upon which I have thrived like any caterpillar.” Here Hopkins returned to the porch, and took a draught as deep as ever Bitias drank, or the Athenian Diotimus, nicknamed the _Funnel_, ever swallowed. “Did I not say,” resumed the wag, “that my pipe was the nurse of wit? I ought to have called her the _dry_ nurse. It is a hard case, gentlemen, but I am in the situation of the flying-fish, incapable of keeping myself up, unless I occasionally moisten my wings.” “If you persist in this dreadful habit,” said Mr. Seymour, “you will assuredly destroy the coat of your stomach!” “The _coat_ of my stomach!” replied Ned; “if that is all, my stomach must even be contented to do what its master has so often done before it--go in its _waistcoat_, with the understanding that it shall have an additional glass to keep it warm. The stomach had better give up its _coat_ than its master his _habit_.” “But suppose I could prove, that by giving up this system, you would lengthen your days,” observed Mr. Seymour. “Lengthen my days.--you are quite right, Mr. Seymour; being rather low in cash, I was compelled to forego my comfort for one whole day, and it was the longest day I ever knew in my life; you are quite correct, sir.” “You are incorrigible, Ned. But come, what say you to a profitable engagement?” asked Mr. Seymour. “Why, as to that, sir, I have always a ready mouth for a ripe cherry.”