d to pay that sum to his obedient servants,
Stumpy, Rowdy and Co.

*****

And Timmins did not like to tell his wife that the contending parties in
the Lough Foyle and Lough Corrib Railroad had come to a settlement, and
that the fifteen guineas a day had consequently determined. "I have had
seven days of it, though," he thought; "and that will be enough to
pay for the desk, the dinner, and the glasses, and make all right with
Stumpy and Rowdy."

III.

The cards for dinner having been issued, it became the duty of Mrs.
Timmins to make further arrangements respecting the invitations to the
tea-party which was to follow the more substantial meal.

These arrangements are difficult, as any lady knows who is in the habit
of entertaining her friends. There are--

People who are offended if you ask them to tea whilst others have been
asked to dinner;

People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all; and cry out
furiously, "Good heavens! Jane my love, why do these Timminses suppose
that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their ----- soiree?" (the
dear reader may fill up the ----- to any strength, according to his
liking)--or, "Upon my word, William my dear, it is too much to ask us to
pay twelve shillings for a brougham, and to spend I don't know how
much in gloves, just to make our curtsies in Mrs. Timmins's little
drawing-room." Mrs. Moser made the latter remark about the Timmins
affair, while the former was uttered by Mr. Grumpley, barrister-at-law,
to his lady, in Gloucester Place.

That there are people who are offended if you don't ask them at all, is
a point which I suppose nobody will question. Timmins's earliest friend
in life was Simmins, whose wife and family have taken a cottage at
Mortlake for the season.

"We can't ask them to come out of the country," Rosa said to her
Fitzroy--(between ourselves, she was delighted that Mrs. Simmins was
out of the way, and was as jealous of her as every well-regulated woman
should be of her husband's female friends)--"we can't ask them to come
so far for the evening."

"Why, no, certainly." said Fitzroy, who has himself no very great
opinion of a tea-party; and so the Simminses were cut out of the list.

And what was the consequence? The consequence was, that Simmins and
Timmins cut when they met at Westminster; that Mrs. Simmins sent back
all the books which she had borrowed from Rosa, with a withering note of
thanks; that Rosa goes about saying th