"O law, law! Mr. Hardingham, sir--Mr. Mason says--but I don't like to give you all his message, indeed I don't--Mr. Mason says--but I hope you'll never send me on such an _arrant_ again--he says, sir--O but I'm sorry for it, that I am--he says then, that the _Quarter_ you _ax'd_ for, ar'n't come yet, and there's time enough for you to read it in when it _do_; that the Blackwood and the Officers' Magazine are _hout_; that you may go without your new novels afore he'll let you have 'em _chaiper_ than other folks, (and there's a shocking shame, sir!) and as for the works you mentioned, there's fifty new ones at least to choose from; but he can't remember what you don't be pleased to recollect yourself. Dear heart! to think of a gentleman like you, sir, being _trated_ thus; why, my blood _biled_ within me; and I wouldn't demean myself to bring back any thing for you from that place; but I took the liberty, sir, to get you 'Damon and Dorinda,' a sweet pretty thing, from another." "Ah!" sighed the bachelor, "I see there's nobody in this world cares for poor Jack Hardingham, but Martha Honeydew;" and he felt sorry that his housekeeper had departed ere his lips had emitted this grateful praise. Yes, Mr. Hardingham felt vexed he scarcely knew why; and uncommonly discontented he knew not wherefore; but had he troubled himself to analyze such feelings, he would have discerned their origin to be solitude and idleness. Mrs. Honeydew brought tea; she had buttered a couple of muffins superlatively well; and making her master's fire burn exceedingly bright, placed them on the cat before it, and a kettle, which immediately commenced a delicate bravura, upon the glowing coals; then, modestly waiting at the distance of a few paces from her master until the water quite boiled, she fixed her brilliant eyes upon his countenance with an expression _intended_ to be _piteous_. "Mrs. Honeydew--Martha," said Hardingham in a low querulous tone, "I fancy I'm going to have a fit of the gout, or a bilious fever." "_Fancy_, indeed, sir; why, I never saw you looking haler." "Ay, Ay, so much the worse; a fit of apoplexy then maybe." "Lauk, lauk! sir; a fit of the blue devils more likely. How can you talk so? A fit of _perplexity_! Dear, dear! how some men do go on to be sure;" pouring the steaming water upon the tea. "You are a kind comforter, Martha; nobody ever raises my spirits like you. Get me my little leathern trunk." "Why, then, that I won't;" getting it down from a closet-shelf as she spoke. "I wish it was burnt with all my heart, that I do; making you so _lammancholy_ as it always _do_."