mong one of the groups of Christmas stories, through
the medium of a shrill monologue. "The Boy at Mugby," to wit, the one
exhilarated and exhilarating appreciate of the whole elaborate system of
Refreshmenting in this Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free, by which
he means to say Britannia.

Laconically, "I am the Boy at Mugby," he announces. "That's about what
_I_ am." His exact location he describes almost with the precision of
one giving latitude and longitude--explaining to a nicety where his
stand is taken. "Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction," in the height of twenty-seven draughts [he's counted 'em,
he tells us parenthetically, as they brush the First Class, hair
twenty-seven ways], bounded on the nor'-west by the beer, and so on. He
himself, he frankly informs you--in the event of your ever presenting
yourself there before him at the counter, in quest of nourishment of any
kind, either liquid or solid--will seem not to hear you, and will appear
"in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent medium
composed of your head and body," determined evidently not to serve you,
that is, as long as you can possibly bear it! "That's me!" cries the
Boy at Mugby, exultantly,--adding, with an intense relish for his
occupation, "what a delightful lark it is!" As for the eatables and
drinkables habitually set forth upon the counter, by what he generally
speaks of as the Refreshmenters, quoth the Boy at Mugby, in a _naif_
confidence, addressed to you in your capacity at once as applicant and
victim, "when you're telegraphed, you should see 'em begin to pitch the
stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sang-wiches under
the glass covers, and get out the--ha, ha!--the sherry--O, my eye, my
eye!--for your refreshment." Once or twice in a way only, "The Boy at
Mugby" was introduced among the Readings, and then merely as a slight
stop-gap or interlude. Thoroughly enjoying the delivery of it himself,
and always provoking shouts of laughter whenever this colloquial morsel
was given, the Novelist seemed to be perfectly conscious himself that
it was altogether too slight and trivial of its kind, to be worthy of
anything like artistic consideration; that it was an "airy nothing" in
its way, to which it was scarcely deserving that he should give more
than name and local habitation.

Critically regarded, it had its inconsistencies too, both as a writing
and as a Reading. There was alto