not unlikely that the maxim, when the devil finds a man or woman idle, he straightway sets them aworking—or, as Erasmus expresses it, _Ocium ad omnem nequitiam impellit_—had a large share in this determination; for, as to the opinion of Shakspeare, that idleness is the source of love, he despised it hepatically, and calculated with certainty that love’s sweetest labour—the contributing to the comfort of her lord—would be diligently pursued by his beloved and most adorable Julia Briggs. All this was just as fair a piece of human calculation, and as probable a conclusion, as could ever be found beyond the regions of pure mathematics; and so, placing every fibre of his big body, excepting some portion of the heart, under the rigid authority of the genius of command, he issued, with an air a deuced deal more martial than marital, his stern orders, which were as recondite as they were energetic—going into the very medullary _penetralia_ of the matter of cooking and housekeeping with a knowledge and consideration that would have done honour to Mrs Margaret Dods of the Cleikum Inn herself. Nor was this to be much wondered at; for, had he himself not washed and dressed in the Peninsula, and had he not there also foraged, and cooked, and swallowed as no _bon vivan_ ever did before, since the days of the three Apicii? The never a man had ever doubted it; and if he had, it would just have been as safe for the unhappy wretch to have disputed his courage as to have expressed one word of scepticism on a subject that so nearly concerned his honour—for, in either case, he would have been knocked down.