“My dear fellow, allow me to conclude,” interrupted Caddy Cuddle, “for your prose Pegasus never can carry you through the hunt at this rate. To be brief, then,--according to what I have heard from my never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented friend, Caddy Caddy,--the badger, when found, immediately makes for his earth: if he reach it without being picked up and taken, he bolts in at the entrance; the bag receives him; its mouth is drawn close by the string; and thus the animal is taken.--But, odds! while I talk of those delights, which were the theme of our discourse in the much-regretted days of Caddy Caddy, I forget that time is on the wing.--I suppose no one is going my way.” “I am,” replied Tom Homer, “in about three hours' time.” “Ay, ay! you're younger, friend Homer, than I have been these fifteen years,” said Cuddle; “time was, before Caddy Caddy lost his wits, when he and I have sat over midnight together, as merry as crickets; but since his misfortune, I have become a very altered man. '_Primâ nocte domum claude_--that has been my motto for years past Mrs. Watermark, my good housekeeper, is, I feel convinced, already alarmed; and it would not become me, positively to terrify her: besides, I am not on very intimate terms with my horse, which I borrowed from my friend, Anthony Mutch, of Mallow Hill, for this occasion: the roads, too, have been so cut and carved about, by the Commissioners,--doubtless, for very wise purposes,--since poor Caddy Caddy's time, that I had much ado to find my way in the broad day-light; and these spectacles, I must needs say, although I reverence the donor, are not to be depended on, so implicitly as I could wish. Let me see--ay--'tis now twelve years ago, from my last birth-day, since they were presented to me; and, believe me, I 've never had the courage to wear them before. I hate changing,--especially of spectacles; I should not have put them on now--confound them!--had it not been for Mrs. Watermark, who protested my others were not fit to be seen in decent society.” “Under the circumstances you have mentioned,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “I must press you to accept of a bed. Pray, make the Castle your own; you will confer an obligation on me by remaining.”