u of a heart. He had been the husband
of three wives, all long since dead; the father of twenty children,
most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity, had likewise
returned to dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow
enough to imbue the sunniest disposition, through and through, with a
sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector! One brief sigh sufficed to
carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. The next
moment, he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant; far
readier than the Collector's junior clerk, who, at nineteen years, was
much the elder and graver man of the two.

I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think,
livelier curiosity, than any other form of humanity there presented to
my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one
point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable, such an
absolute nonentity, in every other. My conclusion was that he had no
soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as I have already said, but
instincts: and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his
character been put together, that there was no painful perception of
deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with what I found
in him. It might be difficult--and it was so--to conceive how he
should exist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem; but
surely his existence here, admitting that it was to terminate with his
last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no higher moral
responsibilities than the beasts of the field, but with a larger scope
of enjoyment than theirs, and with all their blessed immunity from the
dreariness and duskiness of age.

One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed
brethren, was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had
made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His
gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of
roast-meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he
possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any
spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to
subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and
satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's
meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table.
His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the
actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or tu