ice of my landlady. I caught a glance
of her as she came tramping up-stairs; her face glowing, her cap
flaring, her tongue wagging the whole way. "She'd have no such doings
in her house, she'd warrant! If gentlemen did spend money freely, it
was no rule. She'd have no servant maids of hers treated in that way,
when they were about their work, that's what she wouldn't!"

As I hate squabbles, particularly with women, and above all with
pretty women, I slunk back into my room, and partly closed the door;
but my curiosity was too much excited not to listen. The landlady
marched intrepidly to the enemy's citadel, and entered it with a
storm: the door closed after her. I heard her voice in high windy
clamour for a moment or two. Then it gradually subsided, like a gust
of wind in a garret; then there was a laugh; then I heard nothing
more.

After a little while, my landlady came out with an odd smile on her
face, adjusting her cap, which was a little on one side. As she wont
down-stairs, I heard the landlord ask her what was the matter; she
said, "Nothing at all, only the girl's a fool." I was more than ever
perplexed what to make of this unaccountable personage, who could put
a good-natured chamber-maid in a passion, and send away a termagant
landlady in smiles. He could not be so old, nor cross, nor ugly
either.

I had to go to work at his picture again, and to paint him entirely
different. I now set him down for one of those stout gentlemen that
are frequently met with, swaggering about the doors of country inns.
Moist, merry fellows, in Belcher handkerchiefs, whose bulk is a little
assisted by malt liquors. Men who have seen the world, and been sworn
at Highgate; who are used to tavern life; up to all the tricks of
tapsters, and knowing in the ways of sinful publicans. Free-livers on
a small scale; who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea; who
call all the waiters by name, touzle the maids, gossip with the
landlady at the bar, and prose over a pint of port, or a glass of
negus, after dinner.

The morning wore away in forming of these and similar surmises. As
fast as I wove one system of belief, some movement of the unknown
would completely overturn it, and throw all my thoughts again into
confusion. Such are the solitary operations of a feverish mind. I was,
as I have said, extremely nervous; and the continual meditation on the
concerns of this invisible personage began to have its effect:--I was
getting a fit