Burying Ground Buildings, Paddington Road, was the scene of his infant sports. Since his failure, his father had earned his _lively_hood, by letting himself out as a mute, or mourner, to a furnisher of funerals. "_Mute_" and "_voluntary woe_" were his stock in trade. Often did Mrs. Dumps ink the seams of his small-clothes, and darken his elbows with a blacking brush, ere he sallied forth to follow borrowed plumes; and when he returned from his public performance (_oft rehearsed_) Master Sighmon did innocently crumple his crapes, and sport with his weepers. His melancholy outgoings at length were rewarded by some pecuniary incomings. The demise of others secured a living for him, and after a few unusually propitious sickly seasons, he grimly smiled as he counted his gains: the mourner exulted, and, in praise of his profession, the mute became eloquent. Another event occurred: after burying so many people professionally, he at length buried Mrs. Dumps; _that_, of course, was by no means a matter of business. I have before remarked that she was descended from the Coffins; she was now gathered to her ancestors. Dumps had long been proud of gentility of appearance, a suit of black had been his working day costume, nothing therefore could be more easy than for Dumps to turn gentleman. He did so; took a villa at Gravesend, chose for his own sitting room a chamber that looked against a dead wall, and whilst he was lying in state upon the squabs of his sofa, he thought seriously of the education of his son, and resolved that he should be instantly taught the dead languages. Sighmon Dumps was decidedly a young man of a serious turn of mind. The metropolis had few attractions for him, he loved to linger near the monument; and if ever he thought of a continental excursion, the Catacombs and Père la Chaise were his seducers. His father died, his old employer furnished him with a funeral; the mute was silenced, and the mourner was mourned. Sighmon Dumps became more serious than ever; he had a decided nervous malady, an abhorrence of society, and a sensitive shrinking when he felt that any body was looking at him. He had heard of the invisible girl; he would have given worlds to have been an invisible young gentleman, and to have glided in and out of rooms, unheeded and unseen, like a draft through a keyhole. This, however, was not to be his lot; like a man cursed with creaking shoes, stepping lightly, and tiptoeing availed not; a _creak_ always betrayed him when he was most anxious to creep into a corner.