It were surely a breach of politeness on our part not to attend Mr. Ketch in his impromptu evening visit! He shuffled along at the very top of his speed, his mouth watering, while the delicious odour of tripe and onions appeared to be borne on the air to his olfactory nerves: so strong is the force of fancy. Arrived at his destination, he found the shop closed. It was Mrs. Jenkins’s custom to close at seven from October to April; and the shutters had now just been put up. Mr. Ketch seized the knocker on the shop-door--there was no other entrance to the house--and brought it down with a force that shook the first-floor sitting-room, and startled Mr. Harper, the lay clerk, almost out of his armchair, as he sat before the fire. Mrs. Jenkins’s maid, a young person of seventeen, very much given to blacking her face, opened it. “Be I in time?” demanded Ketch, his voice shaking. “In time for what?” responded the girl. “Why, for supper,” said Ketch, penetrating into the shop, which was lighted by a candle that stood on the counter, the one the girl had brought in her hand. “Is old Jenkins the bedesman come yet?” “Old Jenkins ain’t here,” said she. “You had better go into the parlour, if you’re come to supper.” Ketch went down the shop, sniffing curiously. Sharp as fancy is, he could not say that he was regaled with the scent of onions, but he supposed the saucepan lid might be on. For, as was known to Mr. Ketch, and to other of the initiated in tripe mysteries, it was generally thought advisable, by good housewives, to give the tripe a boil up at home, lest it should have become cold in its transit from the vendor’s. The girl threw open the door of the small parlour, and told him he might sit down if he liked; she did not overburden the gentleman with civility. “Missis’ll be here soon,” said she. Ketch entered the parlour, and sat down. There was a fire in the grate, but no light, and there were not, so far as Ketch could see, any preparations yet for the entertainment. “They’re going to have it downstairs in the kitchen,” soliloquized he. “And that’s a sight more comfortabler. She’s gone out to fetch it, I shouldn’t wonder!” he continued, alluding to Mrs. Jenkins, and sniffing again strongly, but without result. “That’s right! she won’t let ‘em serve her with short onions, she won’t; she has a tongue of her own. I wonder how much beer there’ll be!”