ship will send for him
when you are at leisure to look upon money affairs; or if they are so
saucy, so impertinent as to press a man of your quality for their
own, there are canes, there's Bridewel, there's the stocks for your
ordinary tradesmen; but to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer,
silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him,
hopes his wife is well; you have letters to write, or you would see
him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually on such
a day, that is to say, the day after you are gone out of town, Which
shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he
lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long
enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor
the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But
this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the
much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good to be ignored:

"SABLE. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so; I must do
according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come
down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges
I have been at already.

"LORD BRUMPTON. Charges! for what?

"SABLE. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your
death (a fee I've before now known the widow herself go halves in),
but no matter for that--in the next place, ten pounds for watching you
all your long fit of sickness last winter--

"LORD BRUMPTON. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by
turns!

"SABLE. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your
long fit of sickness, last winter, at half a crown a day, a fellow
waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately
recovered, and I lost all my obliging pains for your service.

"LORD BRUMPTON. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou'rt a very impudent fellow. Half
a crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?"

"SABLE.... I have a book at home, which I call my doomsday-book, where
I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know
when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your
mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to
return to life thus--in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the
whole money I am to have for burying you."

* * * * *

Of course Lady Brumpton is discomfited and disg