And so, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Dig knocked, with a heart pit-a-pat, at the front-door of the merchant Strutabout, and was immediately welcomed in, and received, in the best room, by Mrs. Strutabout herself, so smilingly--and by the half dozen Misses Strutabout, so sweetly--that he hardly knew where he was with the novelty of so much genteel welcome. One of the young ladies, so gently and winningly, took his hat, saying, "Pray let me take your hat, _Mister_ Lawson!"--for poor Diggory, in his plainness, had brought it into the room, and, for the life of him did not know where to put it! And then "the infinite deal of nothings" that the young ladies talked for a full half hour--Mrs. Strutabout herself retiring, and saying so politely, "She hoped Mister Lawson would excuse her a short time,"--and poor Diggory's difficulty in framing answers about nothing! If they had talked of anybody he knew from books, either of Socrates or Alexander, of Cicero or Cæsar, of Wat Tyler or John of Gaunt, of Hampden or Lord Chatham, of Marlborough or Napoleon; or of anybody that was "worth talking about," as he said to himself; or of any thing, or place, or substance, of which any thing could be said that was sensible, Diggory could have talked, ay, and in good, thundering, long-syllabled words, too, as well as any man or youth in the three kingdoms. But to take up a full half-hour in prattling about--Lord! he could not describe it when he returned home, it was such infantile sort of stuff as he had never supposed mortals uttered in "respectable" or any other sort of society! Diggory Lawson was, indeed, during that half-hour, "the lad that felt like a fish out of water."