follows the most brilliant _jeu de mot_, as
sombre as the darkness after a forked flash, or as the gardens at the
Crystal Palace after the last bouquet of fireworks.

-----

Conversation is like a boot. When damped it loses its polish.

-----

[The above remarks occasioned by no one having taken any notice of my
epigram, and Milburd only replying to it by saying, "Oh! bosh!"]

[Illustration]

I've just tried to draw a firework in my pocket-book. It doesn't exactly
express my idea. But is a very good sketch of a joke which has failed.

This evening I am melancholy.

CHAPTER XIV.

OUR POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.

Knock at the door.

Complaints made to the President of Happy-Thought Hall of the
non-delivery or late delivery of letters, and newspapers.

I promise to see to it.

"George," I say to our servant, "let me see the postman when he comes."
George grins, says Yes. Exit George.

Why does he grin?

Half an hour after this I am in the yard. I hear a shrill piping voice.
It says, "It carnt b' elped n'ow. 'Taint no farlt o' mine. It's them at
th' office as is irregylar. I says to them, I do, allus; come now, I
says, you ain't to your time, I says, which you carnt say to me all the
years as I've been up-a-down on this road, summer nor winter, and no
one never lost nothin' nor complainin'. Tell the gendlemun fromme
as----" here I step in, and interrupt an old woman talking. I ask. "Has
the postman come?"

The old woman with a bag bobs a curtsey, and says,

[Illustration: "I'M THE POSTMAN, SIR."]

And so she is; and has "carried the bag"--only without the dishonesty of
a Judas--for the last twenty years. Wonderful old lady. About seventy,
and walks twelve miles, at least, in all weathers, every day of her
life.

A little girl, her granddaughter, walks by her side, and a sharp terrier
accompanies the pair.

Poor old woman! blind.

I am disarmed.

The little girl informs me that "it's the folks at the post office as is
wrong."

Generally true.

"Good-bye old Martha, and here's a Christmas-box for you."

"Ar, thank'ee kindly, sir."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV.

MRS. BOODELS--BOODELS--HIS GRANDMOTHER'S OBSERVATION--HER FATE
SEALED--THE COMEDY--HER DEPOSITION--NEW PROPOSAL--AWKWARD--MILBURD'S
RELATION--INVITATION--THE DINNER HOUR--RE