MRS. PENDELL has retired. PENDELL wishes to know what I'll take. Nothing, I thank him. PENDELL doesn't "think--um--that--he'll--um--take anything," and stands before a row of bottles with the critical air of a Commander-in-Chief reviewing the line. It almost looks as if he wanted a bottle to step out of the rank and invite him to make up his mind at once and take a drop of _him_. In order not to prevent him from enjoying himself, I sacrifice myself, and say, "Well, I'll have just the smallest glass of whiskey." PENDELL is of opinion that no one can do better than whiskey, it being, he says, the most wholesome spirit. We whiskey. The quarter-past arrives. We take no notice of it, except that PENDELL remarks that _that_ clock is about twelve minutes fast, in which case, of course, we have nearly half an hour at our disposal. Conversation commences. We somehow get upon Literature, especially upon the subject of my _Analytical History of Motion_. PENDELL quotes a line from somewhere. We can't think where it is to be found. This leads PENDELL to the book-shelves. While he is up, would he mind just mixing me the least drop more whiskey--_and water_, plenty of water. He does so, and continues his search for the book, ending by bringing down the _Ingoldsby Legends_. "Do I remember this one?" he asks me. No, I have forgotten it. He thinks the line he quoted is there. He is, he says, going to give it at a Penny Reading, and has already done so with great success. He reads a few lines. _Flash._--Ask him to read. Nothing so pleasant as the sound of some one reading poetry when you're very tired, and are sitting before a good fire. Light a pipe as an aid to listening comfortably. Better than going to bed. Besides, if he reads, it's _his_ fault that we don't go to bed early, as we told MRS. PENDELL we would. He reads aloud. I interrupt him occasionally (opening my eyes to do so), just to show I am attending, and twice I dispute the propriety of his emphasis; but I don't sustain my side of the argument, from a feeling that to close my eyes and be droned to sleep, is preferable to straining every nerve in order to talk and keep awake. _11 o'clock_, P.M.--PENDELL stops, and says, "Why, you're asleep!" I reply that he is mistaken (having, in fact, just been awoke by feeling as if a spring had given way at the nape of my neck), but I own, candidly, to feeling a little tired. "Um!" says PENDELL, and puts his selection for a Penny Reading away. Bed.