atron of the establishment--an
old gentleman who had dined there for seven-and-twenty years, four days
in the week, off dishes dedicated to the particular days, and had grown
grey with the landlady, the cook, and the head-waiter--this old gentleman
had abruptly withheld his presence. Though his name, his residence, his
occupation, were things only to be speculated on at the Aurora, he was
very well known there, and as men are best to be known: that is to say,
by their habits. Some affection for him also was felt. The landlady
looked on him as a part of the house. The cook and the waiter were
accustomed to receive acceptable compliments from him monthly. His
precise words, his regular ancient jokes, his pint of Madeira and
after-pint of Port, his antique bow to the landlady, passing out and in,
his method of spreading his table-napkin on his lap and looking up at the
ceiling ere he fell to, and how he talked to himself during the repast,
and indulged in short chuckles, and the one look of perfect felicity that
played over his features when he had taken his first sip of Port--these
were matters it pained them at the Aurora to have to remember.

For three weeks the resolution not to regard him as of the past was
general. The Aurora was the old gentleman's home. Men do not play truant
from home at sixty years of age. He must, therefore, be seriously
indisposed. The kind heart of the landlady fretted to think he might have
no soul to nurse and care for him; but she kept his corner near the
fire-place vacant, and took care that his pint of Madeira was there. The
belief was gaining ground that he had gone, and that nothing but his
ghost would ever sit there again. Still the melancholy ceremony
continued: for the landlady was not without a secret hope, that in spite
of his reserve and the mystery surrounding him, he would have sent her a
last word. The cook and head-waiter, interrogated as to their dealings
with the old gentleman, testified solemnly to the fact of their having
performed their duty by him. They would not go against their interests so
much as to forget one of his ways, they said-taking oath, as it were, by
their lower nature, in order to be credited: an instinct men have of one
another. The landlady could not contradict them, for the old gentleman
had made no complaint; but then she called to memory that fifteen years
back, in such and such a year, Wednesday's, dish had been, by shameful
oversight, furnished him f