strutting with fortitude about the house, "the thruth
is, that I've done the whole of yez--I'm as _blue-mowlded_ as ever for
want of a batin'."

"Don't go," said the wife.

"I will go," said Neal, with vehemence; "I'll go if the whole parish was
to go to prevint me."

In about another half-hour Neal sat down quietly to his business,
instead of going to the fair!

Much ingenious speculation might be indulged in, upon this abrupt
termination to the tailor's most formidable resolution; but, for our own
part, we will prefer going on with the narrative, leaving the reader
at liberty to solve the mystery as he pleases. In the mean time, we say
this much--let those who cannot make it out, carry it to their tailor;
it is a tailor's mystery, and no one has so good a right to understand
it--except, perhaps, a tailor's wife.

At the period of his matrimony, Neal had become as plump and as stout
as he ever was known to be in his plumpest and stoutest days. He and the
schoolmaster had been very intimate about this time; but we know not how
it happened that soon afterwards he felt a modest bridelike reluctance
in meeting with that afflicted gentleman. As the eve of his union
approached, he was in the habit, during the schoolmaster's visits to
his workshop, of alluding, in rather a sarcastic tone, considering the
unthriving appearance of his friend, to the increasing lustiness of
his person. Nay, he has often leaped up from his lap-board, and, in the
strong spirit of exultation, thrust out his leg in attestation of his
assertion, slapping it, moreover, with a loud laugh of triumph, that
sounded like a knell to the happiness of his emaciated acquaintance.
The schoolmaster's philosophy, however, unlike his flesh, never departed
from him; his usual observation was, "Neal, we are both receding from
the same point; you increase in flesh, whilst I, heaven help me, am fast
diminishing."

The tailor received these remarks with very boisterous mirth, whilst
Mr. O'Connor simply shook his head, and looked sadly upon his limbs,
now shrouded in a superfluity of garments, somewhat resembling a slender
thread of water in a shallow summer stream, nearly wasted away, and
surrounded by an unproportionate extent of channel.

The fourth month after the marriage arrived. Neal, one day, near its
close, began to dress himself in his best apparel. Even then, when
buttoning his waistcoat, he shook his head after the manner of Mr.
O'Connor, and made