nd pursuer. Strange relics of feudality, and
consequence of our ever-so-old social life! Our domestics (are they not
men, too, and brethren?) are all hypocrites before us. They never speak
naturally to us, or the whole truth. We should be indignant: we should
say, confound their impudence: we should turn them out of doors if they
did. But quo me rapis, O my unbridled hobby?

Well, the truth is, that as for swearing not to say a word about his
master's arrest--such an oath as that was impossible to keep for, with
a heart full of grief, indeed, but with a tongue that never could cease
wagging, bragging, joking, and lying, Mr. Gumbo had announced the
woeful circumstance to a prodigious number of his acquaintances already,
chiefly gentlemen of the shoulder-knot and worsted lace. We have
seen how he carried the news to Colonel Lambert's and Lord Wrotham's
servants: he had proclaimed it at the footman's club to which he
belonged, and which was frequented by the gentlemen of some of the first
nobility. He had subsequently condescended to partake of a mug of ale
in Sir Miles Warrington's butler's room, and there had repeated and
embellished the story. Then he had gone off to Madame Bernstein's
people, with some of whom he was on terms of affectionate intercourse,
and had informed that domestic circle of his grief and, his master being
captured, and there being no earthly call for his personal services that
evening, Gumbo had stepped up to Lord Castlewood's, and informed the
gentry there of the incident which had just come to pass. So when,
laying his hand on his heart, and with gushing floods of tears, Gumbo
says, in reply to his master's injunction, "Oh no, master! nebber to
nobody!" we are in a condition to judge of the degree of credibility
which ought to be given to the lad's statement.

The black had long completed his master's toilet: the dreary breakfast
was over: slow as the hours went to the prisoner, still they were
passing one after another, but no Sampson came in accordance with the
promise sent in the morning. At length, some time after noon, there
arrived, not Sampson, but a billet from him, sealed with a moist wafer,
and with the ink almost yet wet. The unlucky divine's letter ran as
follows:

"Oh, sir, dear sir, I have done all that a man can at the command and
in the behalf of his patron! You did not know, sir, to what you were
subjecting me, did you? Else, if I was to go to prison, why did I not
share you