what a deal of fun there was, what a deuced funny fellow that was who sung the comic songs, and so forth; and then, with another cordial shake of each other’s hands, you part off, each to the serious duties of the day. Unfortunately, it happens that this new acquaintance of yours has to go to his place of business exactly at the same time in the morning with yourself, and that your places of residence and business are co-relatively in opposite situations. It is, therefore, your doom to cross each other’s path regularly every morning at ten minutes before ten, for all the rest of your natural lives. Your eyes begin to open upon this appalling fact on the second day. You meet your man _then_, exactly at the same spot as on the morning before; when, the conviviality of the penult evening being totally spent, both in respect of its effect on your mind, and as a subject of conversation, you stand in an agony of a minute’s duration, talking to each other of you know not what, till, fortunately, perhaps, a friend comes up who is going your way, and you hook yourself upon him, and take a hurried leave of your new acquaintance. Next morning you content yourself with shaking your friend by the hand cordially without stopping. Next morning, again, the affair has degenerated into a laughing nod. Next, it is an ordinary nod; at which point it continues ever after, till it is evident to both of you, as you approach each other, that you are beginning to be fairly tired of existence, and wish, mutually, that it were all well over with you, so far as this breathing world is concerned, and the whole affair hushed up in the silence of the grave.