"Ho! Canterbury was _our_ place; we were great people, the Dingwells, there once. My father failed, though--fortune of war--and I've seen all the world since; 'gad, I've met with queer people, ma'am, and one of those chances brings me here now. If I had not met the oddest fish I ever set my eyes on, in the most out-o'-the-way-place on earth, I should not have had the happiness of occupying this charming apartment at this moment, or of making your acquaintance, or that of your plump little Cupid and Psyche, down stairs. London, I suppose, is pretty much what it always was, where any fellow with plenty of money may have plenty of fun. Lots of sin in London, ma'am, eh? Not quite so good as Vienna. But the needs and pleasures of all men, according to their degree, are wonderfully provided for; wherever money is there is a market--for the cabman's copper and the guinea of the gentleman he drives--everything for money, ma'am--bouquets, and smiles, and coffins, wooden or leaden, according to your relative fastidiousness. But things change very fast, ma'am. Look at this map; I should not know the town--a wilderness, egad! and no one to tell you where fun is to be found." She gazed, rather frightened, at this leering, giggling old man, who stood with his shoulders against the chimney-piece, and his hands tumbling over his shillings in his pockets, and his sinister and weary face ever so little flushed with his sherry and his talk. "Well, if you can give a poor devil a wrinkle of any sort--hey?--it will be a charity; but, egad! I'm as sleepy as the Homilies," and he yawned direfully. "Do, like an angel, go and see to my room, I can scarcely keep my eyes open." From the next room she heard him _hi-yeawing_ in long-drawn yawns, and talking in snatches to himself over the fire, and when she came back he took the candle and said,-- "Beaten, ma'am, fairly beaten to-night. Not quite what I was, though I'm good for something still; but an old fellow can't get on without his sleep." Mr. Dingwell's extraordinary communicativeness would have quite charmed her, had it not been in a faint way racy of corruption, and followed with a mocking echo of insult, which she caught, but could not accurately interpret. The old rascal was irrepressibly garrulous; but he was too sleepy to talk much more, and looked ruefully worn out. He took the bed-room candle with a great yawn, and staggering, I am bound to say only with sleep, he leaned for a moment against the doorway of his room, and said, in his grimmer vein,-- "You'll bring me a cup of coffee, mind, at eight o'clock--_black_, no milk, no sugar--and a bit of dry toast, as thin as a knife and as hard as a tile; _do_ you understand?" "Yes, sir."