able, I was both surprised and delighted with the luxurious abundance
that greeted me on sitting down to dinner at Mrs. Romaine's. I was
equally well pleased with the sprightliness, intelligence and good-humor
of the conversation in which the ladies and gentlemen engaged, and also
with their refined and courteous bearing towards each other. I
congratulated myself on having succeeded in getting not only into
business, but also into good society.

"If my dearly-beloved relatives," thought I, "could see me now, they
might not be well pleased at my situation and prospects. Let them go to
Beelzebub! I will get on in the world, in spite of them!"

In a few days I began to be very useful about the printing office, for I
had learned to set type and to _roll_ behind the press; I also performed
all the multifarious duties of _devil_, and was so fortunate as to
secure the good will of my employer, who generously purchased for me a
fine new suit of clothes, and seemed anxious to make me as comfortable
as possible. His wife, also, treated me very kindly; but there was
something mysterious about this lady, which for a time, puzzled me
extremely. One discovery which I made rather astonished me, young as I
was, and caused me to do a "devil of a thinking." Mr. Romaine and his
wife occupied separate sleeping apartments, and there seemed to be an
aversion between them, although they treated each other with the most
formal and scrupulous politeness. But my readers will agree with me that
mere _politeness_ is not the only sentiment which should exist between a
husband and his wife. There was evidently something "rotten in Denmark"
between Mr. and Mrs. Romaine, and I determined, if possible, to
penetrate the mystery.

Mr. Romaine, who was professedly a pious man, was particularly in favor
of "remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy," and he therefore
directed me to be very punctual in attendance at church and Sunday
school, and I obeyed his praiseworthy request until visions of literary
greatness and renown began to dawn upon me, whereupon, prompted by
gingerbread and ambition, and being moreover aided and abetted by
another printer's devil of tender years and literary aspirations, I, one
Sunday morning, entered the printing office, (of which I kept the key,)
and assisted by my companion, set up and worked off one hundred copies
of a diminutive periodical just six inches square, containing a _very_
brief abstract of the news of the day