uire into
your lordship's subject of complaint." The "Standing Joint Committee"
sounded powerfully, but I believe no further notice was taken, and the
question dropped.

"That's a nice un," said one of the javelin-men at the door when a
friend of his came out. "Did yer 'ear that, Jimmy? Orkins is a nice
un to talk about lodgings. Let him look to his own cirkit--the 'Orne
Cirkit--where my brother told me as at a trial at Guildford the tenant
of that there house wouldn't pay his rent. For why? Because they
was so pestered wi' wermin. And what do you think Orkins told the
jury?--He was counsel for the tenant.--'Why,' he says, 'gentlemen,
you heard what one of the witnesses said, how that the fleas was so
outrageous that they ackshally stood on the backs o' the 'all chairs
and barked at 'em as they come in.' That's Orkins on his own circuit;
and 'ere he is finding fault with our lodgings."

It was not long after my arrival at Lincoln, on the first occasion of
my visiting that drowsy old ecclesiastical city, that I was waited
upon, first by one benevolent body of gentlemen, and then another, all
philanthropists seeking subscriptions for charitable objects.

One bitterly cold morning I was standing in my robes with my back to
the fire at my lodgings, waiting to step into the carriage on my way
to court, when a very polite gentleman, who headed quite a body of
other polite gentlemen, asked "if his lordship would do them the
honour of receiving a deputation from the L. and B. Skating Club."
I assented--nothing would give me more pleasure; and in filed the
deputation, arranging themselves, hats in hand, round me in a
semicircle.

"We have the honour, my lord, to call upon your lordship in pursuance
of a resolution passed last night at a special meeting of our club--"

"What is the name of your club?"

"The L. and B. Skating Club, my lord."

"What is its object?"

"_Our_ object, my lord?"

"No, the object of your _society_. I can guess your object."

The leader answered with a smile of the greatest satisfaction,--

"Er--skating, my lord."

"Your own amusement?"

The head of the deputation bowed.

"Do you want _me_ to skate?"

"No, my lord; but we take the liberty of asking your lordship to
kindly support our club with a subscription."

"When I see," I replied, "so much poverty and misery around me which
needs actual relief, and when I look at this inclement weather and
think how these poor creatures must suf