Bother take it! Edward would make me go dancing all the way down to the Regent’s Circus, just to meet Mrs. Yapp when she came by the coach, though, as I said at the time, it would seem as if we were too glad to see her. However, as my husband, I regret to say, never will listen to reason, I had to put on my bonnet, and go to the expense of a cab, just to please his foolish whim; and after that, to stand in the coach-office like a ninny, waiting for the stage to come in. When it did, I went up to a middle-aged lady, who looked as bilious as a bar of yellow soap, and asked her, with a pleasing smile, “whether her name happened to be Yapp?” But she looked at me very suspiciously, and said, “It was no such thing.” And then I tried everybody else, but no Mrs. Yapp could I find; so, after all, drat it, I had to jump into the cab again, and get home as fast as I could: and there was three and sixpence for cab hire literally and truly thrown away in the dirt, (which wasn’t coming out of the housekeeping, I could tell Mr. Sk--n--st--n,) besides a dinner good enough for an emperor positively wasted; for Mr. Edward must needs be so clever, that he would have I had made some mistake, and insisted upon the dinner being thrown back for an hour and a half at least; though I declare I was so hungry after my ride, and the very smell of it was so tantalizing, that I was ready to eat the ends of my fingers off. When it did come up, of course it was all as dry as a chip, without so much as a drop of gravy: and if there is one thing, to me, worse than another, it is a rump-steak stewed till it is quite dry. There was the macaroni, too, which I had set my heart upon, all spoilt, so that it was, for all the world, like eating bits of wax taper. And I told Edward, pretty plainly, that I wouldn’t give a thank you for my dinner at that time of night, but would sooner have a mouthful of something with my tea; for I do think that when a body is worn out with the fatigues of the day, and one has gone past one’s regular hour for one’s meals,--I do think, I say, that a nice strong cup of warm tea, with a pinch or two of green in it, is better than all the dinners in the world put together in a heap; for it does revive one so, if one can only get it good, (which I find a great difficulty now-a-days, though I pay six shillings a pound for every spoonful that I use;) besides, I declare I’d sooner go without my dinner than my tea, any day; and I am sure all my fair readers must be of the same way of thinking as myself.