nassuming pen)
until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on
it.

He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly
regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object--on his
clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella.
Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two
blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have
given entire will show that on the morning of the third of February,
eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To
whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those
materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed
was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly,
long afterwards, upon the pillow-case.

He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to
have a Heading without a Head, and where was _his_ Head when he took such
things into it? In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to
have hid the writings; thereby involving his style in greater obscurity.
But his Boots was at least pairs,--and no two of his writings can put in
any claim to be so regarded. Here follows (not to give more specimens)
what was found in

CHAPTER II--HIS BOOTS

"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say? I
assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman."

"Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel,--a
spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth
cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a
large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,--that is to say,
white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down
with the week.

"It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell
countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the
bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think,
impossible!"

"Hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.)
"But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet, a
compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See then,--look there,--read!
'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.' Is it not so?"

"It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel.

"Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!" Madame Bouclet dismissed
him with a lively snap of