es that makes a
loose screw fit, and contriving to get driven in like a wedge between
any two chairs where there is a crevice. I shall not call that boy by
the monosyllable referred to, because, though he has many impish traits
at present, he may become civilized and humanized by being in good
company. Besides, it is a term which I understand is considered vulgar
by the nobility and gentry of the Mother Country, and it is not to be
found in Mr. Worcester's Dictionary, on which, as is well known, the
literary men of this metropolis are by special statute allowed to be
sworn in place of the Bible. I know one, certainly, who never takes his
oath on any other dictionary, any advertising fiction to the contrary,
notwithstanding.

I wanted to write out my account of some of the other boarders, but a
domestic occurrence--a somewhat prolonged visit from the landlady, who
is rather too anxious that I should be comfortable broke in upon the
continuity of my thoughts, and occasioned--in short, I gave up writing
for that day.

--"I wonder if anything like this ever happened. Author writing, jacks?"

"To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 't is nobl--"

--"William, shall we have pudding to-day, or flapjacks?"

--"Flapjacks, an' it please thee, Anne, or a pudding, for that matter;
or what thou wilt, good woman, so thou come not betwixt me and my
thought."

--Exit Mistress Anne, with strongly accented closing of the door and
murmurs to the effect: "Ay, marry, 't is well for thee to talk as if
thou hadst no stomach to fill. We poor wives must swink for our masters,
while they sit in their arm-chairs growing as great in the girth through
laziness as that ill-mannered fat man William hath writ of in his books
of players' stuff. One had as well meddle with a porkpen, which hath
thorns all over him, as try to deal with William when his eyes be
rolling in that mad way."

William--writing once more--after an exclamation in strong English of
the older pattern,--

"Whether 't is nobler--nobler--nobler--"

To do what? O these women! these women! to have puddings or flapjacks!
Oh!--

"Whether 't is nobler--in the mind--to suffer
The slings--and arrows--of--"

Oh! Oh! these women! I will e'en step over to the parson's and have a
cup of sack with His Reverence for methinks Master Hamlet hath forgot
that which was just now on his lips to speak.

So I shall have to put off making my friends acquain