"Well, you see, the fact is, I can't tell that, yet." "Do your chimneys draw? Does your range or cooking stove do things up brown? Have you got your Bettys?" "I vow you've sort of got me this time, brother Jack; but I'll find out, soon, and let you know." "Do, if you please, Peter, and let us hear an account of how things are working after the first quarter's experience." Perriwinkle opened with a neat supper party. We attended, and every thing looked cap-a-pie; new, tasteful and happy as any thing human under God's providence and the art and judgment of man could promise. At midnight the company dispersed, all wishing the Perriwinkles life, love, and lots of the small fry. Months passed, full three; we met our old and familiar friend, Peter Perriwinkle, and as we had not seen him for some time, we met with greetings most cordial. "How is every thing, old boy--paradise regained?" "Ah," said Peter, with an ominous shake of the head, "dear Jack,--we've a great deal to learn in this world, and as our old friend Sam Veller says, whether its worth while to pay so much to learn so little, at cost--is a question." "You begin to think so, eh?" "Things don't work quite so smooth as I expected--I've moved!" "What? Not so soon?" "Yes, sir," said Perriwinkle; "that house was a nuisance!" "A nuisance? Why, I thought you were in raptures with it?" "Had water every wet spell, knee-deep in the cellar; full of rats, bugs, and foul air." "You don't say so?" "Yes, I do," said Perriwinkle, mournfully. "Chimneys smoked, paper peeled off the walls, Mrs. P. got the rheumatics, a turner worked all night, next door, the fellow that had previously lived or stayed in the house, ran off, leaving all his bills unpaid, and our door bell was incessantly kept ringing by ugly and impudent duns, and the creditors of the rascal, whom I did not know from a side of sole leather. I lived there in purgatory!" "Too bad," said we. "Well, you've moved, eh?" "Moved--and such an infernal job as it was. You know the two vases I received as a present from my brother, at Leghorn; I wouldn't have taken $100 each, for them--" "They are worth it; more too." "The carman dropped one out of his hands, broke it into a half bushel of flinders, and I hit the centre table upon which the other stood, with a chair, and broke it into forty pieces. But, that wasn't any thing, sir. My wife packed up the elegant set of china presented her by her sister, in a large clothes basket, and set it out in the hall, and while our Irish girl and the carman were carrying out a heavy trunk, the girl lost her balance and fell bump into the basket. She weighed over two hundred pounds--every article of the china was crushed into powder!" "This was too bad," said we, condolingly.